La Spagna si respinge contro il goal di spesa NATO del 5% dei moot

This is not in the article, but as of today, Spain’s government has sent a letter to NATO, I will write it down since I can’t post pictures in comments:

EL PRESIDENTE DEL GOBIERNO
Madrid, 19 June, 2025

Excmo. Sr. Mark Rutte
NATO Secretary General
BRUSSELS

Dear Secretary General,

I am writing to share with you my views regarding the 2025 NATO Summit declaration currently under discussion.

As you know, Spain is fully committed to NATO. Putin’s cruelty and total disregard for international law and human rights constitute an existential threat that cannot be ignored or underestimated. To neutralize it, we need a stronger NATO — with the United States fully engaged — and a more capable Europe, able to assume its own defence and security, provide decisive support to Ukraine, and alleviate part of the extraordinary burden borne by the Allies on the Eastern flank.

Spain firmly supports these common goals. That is why, in recent years, it has been the fourth NATO country with the highest average annual increase in defence spending — reaching 2% of its GDP in 2025 — and it is currently present in the Alliance’s missions with thousands of military personnel and top-notch equipment.

I want to assure you that 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. For three fundamental reasons. First, because it is not necessary to fulfil our commitments to the Alliance. As you know, NATO’s Capability Targets are established through a standardized, transparent, and traceable process. Every four years, the Strategic Commands identify the Minimum Capability Requirements that the Alliance will need to fulfill its mission in the years ahead, and develop a Capability Target package for each Ally with specific goals and timelines.

Current Capability Target packages have been approved by our Defence ministers in June 2025 and will remain valid at least until the end of the decade. Different countries will need to invest different amounts to achieve them. Some will need to reach a 5% of their GDP. Others, less. And such asymmetry should be by all means respected, among other reasons, because it is embedded in NATO’s very operating principles, and because it stems from a series of economic factors (e.g., labor and production costs) that have nothing to do with the level of commitment of each Ally towards our collective defense.

Spain, in particular, will require a 2.1% spending, according to our military’s estimates — an investment that will suffice to acquire and maintain all the personnel, equipment, and infrastructures requested by the Alliance.

For Spain, committing to a 5% target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive, as it would move Spain further away from optimal spending and it would hinder the EU’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its security and defense ecosystem. This is in fact the second reason I would like to share with you. We agree that the EU needs to help Allies improve their interoperability, procurement process and industrial base to contribute more decisively to deterring Russia and rebalancing the transatlantic defense burden, without forgetting the threats coming from the Southern flank. The EU and its member states are already working on these objectives. But to make real progress, we will require some time and maneuvering space. And I fear that a rushed 5% increase would harm this process in two ways.

On the one hand, by rushing Spain into off-the-shelf purchases that could further exacerbate equipment interoperability challenges, and send a substantial portion of their resources to non-European suppliers, thus preventing them from developing their own industrial base and exacerbating the current diversion of European savings to foreign markets, adding around €100 billion to the €300 billion they already transfer annually.

On the other, by slowing down our economic growth through debt increase, inflationary pressures, and the diversion of investment from crucial activities with a higher multiplier effect than the defense industry (e.g., education, healthcare, digital technology). Ultimately, it is worth remembering that capabilities are paid for with euros, not GDP percentages. If we truly want to increase real spending in a sustained way, our main goal should be to ensure that our economies grow significantly in the coming years. To achieve this, we should find the right balance between boosting our defense capabilities and boosting our overall economic competitiveness.

A third and final reason that prevents Spain from committing to the 5% target is that such level of spending would be incompatible with our Welfare State and our world vision. Intentions are powerful — but they rarely override empirical reality. And the empirical reality is that, for Spain, as for other NATO countries, reaching a 5% defense spending will be impossible unless it comes at the cost of increasing taxes to the middle class, cutting public services and social benefits for their citizens, and scaling back their commitment to the green transition and international development cooperation.

It is the legitimate right of every government to decide whether or not they are willing to make those sacrifices. As a sovereign Ally, we choose not to. We choose to strike a balance between the need to increase defence expenditure and the need to address the other social, economic, and environmental challenges that both our world and our citizens face.

In the current context, and in accordance with the Capabilities Targets recently agreed within NATO, for us that balance means allocating 2% of our GDP to defense and security, while we continue to invest in diplomacy, trade, welfare policies, and development aid.

Of course, it is not our intention to limit the spending ambitions of other Allies or to obstruct the outcome of the upcoming Summit. That is why I am simply requesting the inclusion of a more flexible formula in this year’s declaration — one that either recognizes each Ally’s path to achieve their respective Capability Targets and makes the spending target optional, or one that excludes Spain from the application of the spending target. Similar exceptions have been made in the past for other Allies, and there are many compelling reasons to do so now.

The formula I suggest would allow us to preserve the 5% target in the declaration for those Allies that need it or want to pursue it.

I therefore hope that you will consider my proposal. Spain will meet its Capability Targets as agreed by the Defense ministers, it will remain a loyal member of both NATO and the EU, and it will continue to actively protect the Eastern and Southern flanks with its troops and resources.

I remain at your disposal should you require any further information.

Yours sincerely,
Pedro Sánchez
Presidente del Gobierno de España

To me spending 5% GDP on defence seems like an arbitrary number. First, we need to discuss and agree what kind of capabilities we want to achieve and what are the threats ahead of us in the short and medium term. I would say most countries accepting 5% target are simply giving in to Trump because they know that in four years time he won’t be the president anymore and the US will change its mind about defence spending. I don’t think they are really committed to it.

Given youth unemployment in Spain is 25%, they should just increase the size of the ground forces, Spain can be Nato’s cannon fodder provider. Tie that up with some technical/trade training and you get a boost for the economy after service.

Now let me hide away from the rocks!

The reality is that not all European countries view the threat of Russia the same way. Countries like Portugal and Spain are reluctant to militarize like crazy because they’re so far away from the potential frontline, unlike Poland or the Baltics. Russia is simply not going to roll all the way to the Pyrenees. Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón himself said, “Our threat is not Russia bringing its troops across the Pyrenees. When we talk about Russia it’s more a hybrid threat. It’s the threat of cyber attacks. So what we have to do is not just talk about defense, but fundamentally talk about security.”

Spain has also not been involved in any major wars for a long time since their own Civil War.

Understandable, but this is also the reason why NATO is weaker than most people want to contend with. Not many countries will be able or willing to send a combat-ready army corps to Lithuania to defend against a million Russians hoping to escape their terrible lives in a blaze of glory.

Say all EU countries pull off 5% and Trump demands 10% shortly after?

I mean obviously lmao. Not all countries have the same threats nor have the same love or need for NATO. 5% is insane.

5% is an unrealistic number to sustain for any democratic nation not in a hot war. The war mongering US spends 3.5%.

What Europe is lacking most is neither money, military hardware nor technology but capable institutions that can effectively respond to dynamic threats like Russia and not rely on the US. It should be abundantly clear that a council of national leaders whose express job description it is to represent the particular interest of their particular country and who can only make decisions unanimously is not up to this task.

I’m not saying that more spending isn’t necessary, it probably is, at least in the short term. I’m extremely disappointed, though, how our political leaders just keep talking about more and more public money instead of doing their primary job and building the appropriate political institutions in order to spend this money effectively and keep Europe safe. Israel or South Korea are each spending 1/10 the amount that Europe is spending and yet their militaries are arguably more capable then all of Europe combined.

What we need first and foremost is some sort of European command structure and European security council with the express purpose of organizing the defense of the Union, with the authority to command national units for that purpose and with the power to strategically oversee military procurement in order to acquire the necessary capabilities and not just pursue some narrow national interest.

Spain doesn’t want to spend on American weapons for NATO because its only credible military conflict would be with Morocco. Morocco is a preferential ally of the USA’s, which means that any NATO investment Spain makes becomes unusable in a situation of war, as happened during the Moroccan campaigns against the Francoist regime.

The right decision.

The 5% is an arbitrary figure put forward by Mr. TACO. If we truly want military autonomy, the first thing we should do is meet and arrive at the real percentage that Europe needs, and from there, invest in European industry.

I’m Spanish and I fully support this. 5% is just a random number that the Americans came up with. Why not 7% o 3%? I understand that it is important to increase the spending but I simply refuse to the USA dictating the economic policies of my country.

It really doesn’t make sense for Spain to have a largely military. Maybe a decent-sized navy. But not much beyond that.

this is why I laugh when people say ”Europe is in it together”…….no, no its not lol.

Spain is across the continent, and Russian army will never ever be a threat to them directly. So of course they dont actually give a shit about what Russia does or doesnt do, because why would they?

Tbf to Spain 5% seems like a lot.