Spain and NATO Agree: Madrid Will NOT Spend 5% of GDP in Defense – Deal Comes as Dispute Threatened To Derail Alliance’s Next Week Summit
While failing Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is under fire domestically, trying to quell the political unrest caused by the manifold corruption scandals, he did manage to obtain a victory in his defense policy ahead of next week’s NATO summit.
The socialist leader is dealing with the fallout of corruption investigations involving his wife, his brother, and also of ministers and party officials involved with prostitutes, porn stars and bribes.
The police even had to search Socialist Party HQ for the emails of disgraced leader Santos Cerdán.
It’s against this debacle that Sánchez came out and announced that Spain was NOT going to increase its defense budget to 5% of the GDP – a move that could potentially derail the summit in The Hague.
But it was not to be so.
Associated Press reported:
“Spain reached a deal with NATO to be excluded from a 5% of GDP defense spending target, days before the military alliance’s leaders will gather at a summit, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Sunday.
‘Spain will, therefore, not spend 5% of its GDP on defense, but its participation, weight and legitimacy in NATO remain intact’, Sánchez said in a televised address.”
The Spaniard said they’d be able to keep its commitments to the military alliance with their 2.1% GDP defense spending.
“In letters exchanged on Sunday between NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and Sánchez, Spain was granted the exemption and the language around the 5% spending target was made to no longer include ‘all allies’, Sánchez said.”
While the 2.1% goal may not be comparatively very expressive, it’s almost double 1.28% that NATO estimates Spain spent on military expenditure – the absolute lowest spender.
“In April, Sánchez announced that the government would raise defense spending to 2% this year, a move that he received pushback for at home including from some allies.”
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