Gomes Cravinho, who was speaking during a lunch organised by the Portuguese-Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Lisbon, said it was "natural" that in Europe there was greater concern regarding defence.

"We need our business, technological and industrial fabric to identify sectors where it can participate in and where it can establish necessary partnerships between the public sector, the private sector, investigation and armed forces," he added.

He also said there were new challenges facing Europe. "We have challenges that result from cyber-reality, from the reality of our societies that as well as being open and democratic, are increasingly more dependent on technology, which increasingly creates more vulnerability," he went on. "We have challenges that result from the unsustainable use of natural resources."

However, he said that "traditional threats" continued to exist and the "threat of terrorism that Spain has makes sense" and that it did not leave "anyone exempt of the possibility of terrorist attacks."

That's why it is important to "create important mechanisms to know how to respond to that Europe of defence," Cravinho pointed out.

He also highlighted that member states of the European Union were the second biggest military investor in the world and called for convergence between the Spanish and Portuguese industries.