Pedro Sánchez says ‘no’ to the debate on nuclear rearmament that has opened in the EU due to the breakup of Donald Trump’s US with the old continent. “70 years ago, our parents and grandparents came to the conclusion that nuclear deterrence was too costly and too risky,” said the President of the Government in a speech at the Munich Security Conference in which this issue was on the table. In Europe, only France and the United Kingdom have nuclear weapons and Spain is already positioned against nuclear deterrence, which is a debate that was opened by the high representative, Kaja Kallas, and that France has offered to provide, awakening the interest of countries such as Germany and Poland.
The president recalled that this is an expensive formula that “requires colossal public investments” and that it is also “too dangerous.” On several occasions, technical or human errors brought us close to unleashing an open nuclear war between the West and the former Soviet Union. A war that would have brought humanity to the brink of extinction,” he recalled. “After several decades, our predecessors realized that the risks of nuclear deterrence outweighed its contribution to peace. They realized that a system that requires zero errors and constant correction to avoid total destruction is no guarantee, it is a dangerous bet,” added Sánchez, who mentioned Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy.
“It is not a question of left or right,” said Sánchez, who in the last year has largely become Trump’s nemesis from an ideological point of view. “It is a question of doing the right thing,” said the president, who has opted for nuclear disarmament despite the fact that “today it seems that the tide is changing.” “The nuclear powers have forgotten the lessons of the past and are expanding their nuclear arsenals again,” lamented the president, who gave some figures: these powers spend 11 million euros per hour on nuclear weapons and the US intends to spend 946 billion dollars on nuclear weapons in the coming decades, “which would be enough to eradicate global poverty.”
Sign a new START
“It is a historical mistake that we cannot repeat,” warned Sánchez, who considers that the situation is even more dangerous with the rise of Artificial Intelligence, which he has defined as “a shadow of uncertainty over the entire world.” “That is why I humbly ask all these powers: please put a stop to nuclear rearmament, sit down to negotiate and sign a new START agreement,” Sánchez claimed, opposing a new arms race in the face of the expiration of the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). “We have to stop Putin. We have to strengthen our deterrent capacity, but let’s do it in a coordinated, controlled manner, let’s build an authentic European army, not in ten years but now. Spain will join with all the resources it needs,” he noted.
“Let us strengthen our multilateral system, reform and empower those institutions that, despite their shortcomings, have managed to maintain peace in the West for decades and invest in the values of solidarity, empathy and cooperation that have brought us here,” he said in defense of the UN and multilateralism that are threatened by Trump. “The rearmament that we need most urgently in the world is a moral rearmament,” he declared.
Sánchez has also reproached the American president, although he has not expressly mentioned him, for seeing the EU “as a threat.” “Some look at the EU and would like to see a more fragmented EU and EU representatives are working for a stronger EU,” he stated.
Increasing military spending fuels US industry
In the security forum par excellence of Western countries, Sánchez has defended his opposition to skyrocketing military spending to 5% of GDP, which was imposed by Trump on his NATO allies last year, in the midst of the threat of disengaging from European security. After recalling that Spain has tripled its defense spending in the last seven years and doubled the presence of troops in NATO missions, Sánchez emphasized the need to “strengthen the European pillar within NATO.”
“Paradoxically, this means that if we accept this 5% idea, ultimately what we will do is develop more dependence on the American defense sector. That is why we have to focus more not only on how much we spend but how much we spend together and, therefore, better,” he said in the presence of the prime ministers of Denmark and Finland, who are two of the leaders who have appealed most vehemently to the need to skyrocket military spending.
Sánchez has also questioned Trump’s expansionist desires for Greenland, which have not ended, as the Danish Prime Minister acknowledged during the conversation. The president has assured that he is “giving Putin more reasons” in his invasion of Ukraine and weakening the EU’s position in the Global South “which perhaps has legitimized what Putin is doing.” In that sense, he has shown his concern that Western societies do not enter into debates that the Global South demands, such as climate or global health. “We only look at ourselves,” he reproached.
Condemns the “double standard”
Regarding the defense of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of nations, Sánchez has taken the opportunity to question “the double standards” of the majority of the international community, especially the Western powers. “When we talk about territorial integrity we defend territorial integrity in Ukraine, but also in Gaza and the West Bank, in Palestine. “The situation that the Palestinian people are suffering in the West Bank is totally unacceptable and I believe that the influence that Western societies and governments may have on the southern flank is also very important for the security and geopolitical interest of the European Union and of course also for transatlantic relations,” he reflected before questioning that NATO does not apply the 360 approach that it signed at the Madrid summit in 2022.
“I think there is a lot of disagreement about it and not much unity when it comes to providing a possible solution to the conflict in the Middle East.” That is one of the big issues left out of the Munich Security Conference, focused on the transatlantic relationship and the future of Ukraine, where Volodymyr Zelensky intends to call elections, as Trump demands, as long as Russia accepts a two-month ceasefire.
Source: www.eldiario.es
