With the lights and music turned off at the NATO summit in Madrid, which for three days in a row projected a leadership on the international scene that even the American Joe Biden recognized, Pedro Sánchez must return to the harsh reality of the domestic political scene in Spain .
The President of the Government yesterday closed the meeting of the Atlantic Alliance assuming another relevant commitment, for which now he will also have to look "under the stones" for a sufficient parliamentary majority to guarantee its approval.
Sánchez agreed with Biden on Tuesday to expand NATO's anti-missile shield, with two other US destroyers, at the Rota base. A project before which the partner of the government coalition with the PSOE, United We Can, wrinkled its nose again. Just like the rest of the leftist groups that make up the majority of the legislature. And the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, rushed to telephone Esteban González Pons, to try to tie up the support of the PP.
The head of the Executive also promised yesterday before NATO and the European Union to increase Spain's defense spending, in line with one of the summit agreements to increase common economic resources, an essential condition for reinforcing military and deterrent capabilities of the Alliance in the face of the Russian threat on the eastern slope and on the southern flank, for the next ten years.
"I have reiterated to the allies that Spain will fulfill the commitment with NATO and the EU to allocate 2% of GDP to the defense budget," Sánchez made official at the end of the summit. A long-term objective, however, with the horizon set in 2029, to double defense spending to 2% of GDP, which now stands at just over 1%. But that will already begin to be reflected, according to Sánchez's intention, in the State budgets for 2023, whose project is being outlined by the Ministry of Finance. “The Government is already working to increase defense investment this year. And the proposal that I am going to present to the Cortes is to reach that 2% in a period of eight years, that is, until the year 2029, ”said Sánchez.
United We Can, however, still does not want to hear about the issue. So Sánchez began to do pedagogy, and justified the increase in the defense budget. With an explicit argument, due to the war in Ukraine: “Security, which is an essential condition to guarantee our model of democratic coexistence, is not guaranteed. We cannot take it for granted, we must protect it day by day, and we must allocate economic resources for it”, he argued.
The head of the Executive thus demanded, looking above all to his left, "a country agreement" in the Cortes, "to guarantee and reinforce the security of Spain." And he argued that after the invasion of Ukraine, even Sweden's Social Democratic government broke its 200-year neutrality. “Our responsibility is to review our postulates”, he appealed to the left of the PSOE.
“Putin's unilateral and illegal invasion implies a tectonic change in the international order, and that has to make us all reflect. If Sweden has done it, how can the political forces in Spain not do it too? ”, He required. And he thus demanded to seal "a country agreement that transcends ideological issues."
