NATO allies will meet in The Hague next week and are expected to agree to significantly boost military expenditure, but Madrid is reluctant.

NATO allies will meet in The Hague next week and are expected to agree to significantly boost military expenditure, but Madrid is reluctant.

Spain wants a carve-out from NATO’s likely future defense spending goal of 5 percent of GDP, the country’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said ahead of next week’s high-stakes alliance summit in The Hague.

“Spain will continue to fulfil its duty in the years and decades ahead and will continue to actively contribute to the European security architecture. However, Spain cannot commit to a specific spending target in terms of GDP at this summit,” Sánchez told NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in a letter seen by POLITICO.

Spain has the lowest military spending of any NATO member, allocating just 1.3 percent of its GDP to defense in 2024. Sánchez said earlier this year that Russia didn’t pose an immediate security threat to Spain.

    • Justin@lemmy.jlh.nameEnglish
      1·
      12 days ago

      That is not the argument stated in the article

      Sánchez argued that Spain doesn’t need to spend 5 percent of its GDP to fulfill its so-called capability targets, meaning new objectives of weapons inventory agreed by NATO defense ministers earlier this month.

      He also wrote that a 5 percent defense spending goal would jeopardize the country’s welfare system, force the government to increase taxes on the middle class, scale back commitments to the green transition and curtail international development cooperation.

      “It is the legitimate right of every government to decide whether or not they are willing to make those sacrifices,” he wrote.

      Rushing to 5 percent would also force Madrid to buy off-the-shelf equipment instead of fostering its own industrial base, as well as take money away from welfare policies, Sánchez also wrote.

      The Spanish Socialist party is in a coalition with the junior left-wing Sumar party, which opposes increased defense spending and whose members are expected to attend a counter-summit for peace in parallel to the NATO summit.