Donald Trump asked the allies to shoot military spending to 5% of GDP. The president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, answered the secretary general of NATO, Mark Rutte, that Spain did not sign it. And, in the end, after intense negotiation hours coordinated by Diego Rubio, the Cabinet Director of Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish Government has reached an agreement with the Atlantic Alliance to rewrite the conclusions of the NATO summit on Tuesday and Wednesday in the beech that margin the flexibility.
In addition, Rutte himself has sent a letter to Sánchez confirming that agreement, which is a new sort of Iberian exception – as Spain achieved in the EU during the energy crisis for a stop at the price of gas.
“I understand that Spain is convinced that it can meet the new capacity objectives agreed with a spending trajectory of less than 5% (3.5% in basic defense and 1.5% in security related expenses) of GDP,” says Routte in his letter of response to Sánchez’s last Friday’s Friday in which he opposed 5% generalized GDP for defense: “In the light of his letter, I confirm it by the present. It will grant Spain the necessary flexibility to determine its own sovereign route to achieve the objective of capacity and the necessary annual resources as a percentage of GDP, as well as to present its own annual plans.
To the letter from Rutte, Sánchez replied: “In the light of his letter, and for the sake of the Allied Unit, I can confirm that Spain will accept the draft declaration distributed on June 22 for the next NATO summit, in the understanding that the commitment of Spain refers to the fulfillment of the objective of capacity in the term and in its entirety, regardless of the proportion of the GDP that this supposes, and to present our own plans.
According to the information that Eldiario.es has had, in the language of the declaration the formulas “all allies”, “each of the allies are committed to 5%”, and goes more to a generic “allies”, which does not include the 32 member states.
In fact, Donald Trump himself said last Friday that the US did not necessarily have to spend 5%. “I think they should pay 5% in defense,” Trump said: “I don’t think we should do it, but I think they do. We have been spending and supporting NATO for a long time, in many cases paying almost 100% of the cost. Therefore, I don’t think we should do it, but I think NATO countries should do so, without a doubt.”
Another thing that has been done in the conclusions is to dissociate 5% of GDP in defense spending with capacities objectives. That is, in the first conclusions it was said that some were a consequence of the other. On the other hand, Spain said that they were not things that were hand in hand: that the commitments could be fulfilled without the need to reach 5% of GDP.
This means that Spain now contributes an expense equivalent to 2% of GDP to fulfill NATO’s commitments, which eludes the 5% obligation – which, in principle, will have to fulfill the rest of the allies -, but in the future, depending on the commitments and objectives agreed by NATO members, and how Spain’s GDP is behaved, that 2% may fluctuate. In fact, in the government they consider that the objectives of military capacities can be met with an expense of between 2 and 2.1% of GDP.
As Eldiario.es has learned, this Saturday at the last minute an agreement was reached between Spain and NATO. From there, the NATO general secretary, Mark Rutte, has circulated a new draft: this Sunday at 17.30 the mechanism of silence concluded and, since no country has broken it as Spain did on Friday with the previous conclusions, the new text is tentatively approved until it formalizes Wednesday in the Atlantic Council of Heads of State and Government at the NATO summit in Hague.
Apart from the language of the conclusions, official letters have been agreed between Sánchez and Rutte. In that exchange, the NATO general secretary says that the agreement which will be achieved at the Summit will give Spain the “flexibility” to determine its “sovereign path” to achieve the objectives of capabilities and annual resources necessary for it, including the percentage of GDP, as well as to deliver their own annual plans.
Indeed, Routte “confirms”, as written in his letter, to Spain that the agreement implies that the capacity objectives can be achieved with the timely GDP expenditure, not necessarily reaching 5%.
The president of the Government, on the other hand, affirms that he will not block the declaration and that Spain will meet its capacity objectives but with the necessary and timely GDP expenditure.
“The debates on the statement of the Summit, which includes the new Investment Plan in Defense, have concluded and the declaration already has the agreement of all allies. We hope that allied leaders formally approve this statement when they meet at the Hague Summit,” said NATO sources.
Source: www.eldiario.es
