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Cooperation Attaché

The main task of the Defense Cooperation Attaché is to be the Liaison Office between the Deputy Ministry of Defense and its dependent departments and the different Agencies and Authorities within the US Department of Defense, and it is in charge of the coordination and financial control of the Military Acquisition Program, the promotion of Industrial cooperation within the Defense framework, and the collaboration in the agreement and offsets development associated to military materiel.

Organization

It directly depends from the Defense Attaché.

It depends functionally from the General Direction of Armaments and Materiel (DGAM) with respect to all aspects related to the bilateral cooperation in Defense related issues, channeling the bilateral relations with the US agencies responsible for international cooperation in defense.

Moreover it depends functionally from the General Director of Economic Affairs,  with respect to all aspects related to the financial management and control of Foreign Military Sales Cases, serving as a liaison between the Deputy Ministry of Defense and the different USA Department of Defense (DoD) Agencies which centralized the economic development of the Foreign Military Sales Program (FMS), the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS).

It is compound of two areas: Finance and Armament.

It also includes the BUDFIN (SEA III) office, whose chief, an officer, is Assitant Attaché and reports directly to the Defence Attaché.

Finance Area Tasks.

  • Coordination and financial control of the Military Acquisitions Program.
  • Liaison between the Deputy Minister of Defense and the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) for the control of the Spanish FMS Program funds and the Third Party Agreement.
  • Management of the Spanish Billing (Billing DD-645) and Special Billing Requests for the Spanish FMS Program.
  • Country Administrator for Host Nation Token Administrator (HNTA) for all the tokens that allow online access to the Security Cooperation Portal (SCIP), which main objective is to gather information about the FMS Program Cases
  • Liaison with the Freight Forwarder of the Spanish Department of Defense for any problems with Export Licenses and military materiel transfers.
  • Represents the Deputy Minister of Defense in various International Working Groups, which main goal is the improvement of the FMS Program: Foreign Procurement Group, Foreign Procurement Working Group (FPWG) and Foreign Procurement Commercial Working Group (FPCWG).

Armament Area Tasks.

  • Support the Spanish companies in the defense sector implemented in the US market or that are seeking to enter, as well as the relationship with  US defense companies that contract or are interested in signing contracts with the Ministry of Defense or Spanish companies of defense.
  • Follow-up of the policy, planning and DoD weapons programs, as well as of the bilateral or multinational programs with Spanish participation.
  • Look into U. S. policy on domestic market protection, and exports control regarding their impact on defense cooperation.
  • Participate in all defense-related forums, symposia, groups, fairs or exhibitions which may be deemed of interest for defense.
  • Transmittal of Visit Requests for authorization to visit offices of the DoD and defense-related companies by Spanish civilian and military personnel.