In 2014, Pedro Sánchez stated from the general secretariat of the PSOE that Spain had an excess of the Ministry of Defense because what was really necessary and useful was to invest more in social policies. In 2018, just arrived at Moncloa, the President of the Government mounted a public relations campaign on account of solidarity with the emigrants, authorizing the entry into the port of Valencia of the ship Aquarius, which was wandering the Mediterranean with 630 people on board . If we remember, it is not to make the President of the Government ugly for the weakness of his convictions, but to show how difficult it is to keep them standing when reality imposes its conditions, either at the Melilla fence or in the Russian war theater of operations. ukrainian If you want a more distant example, think that the German greens, present in the federal government, are burning coal to produce energy.
NATO has issued in Madrid the birth certificate of the new bloc policy. At the moment, aggressive language and militarization of the European continent, also more spending on national defense budgets and greater participation of the states of the continent in the aliquot quota of the Atlantic organization, as crazy Trump demanded on his day. The practical enemy is Russia, and the systemic enemy, China, reads the new doctrine. And to this we must apply from now on. In a matter of months, we Europeans, pushed by Putin, have given an answer to the political theory exam that consisted of imagining the construction of a space of will and power of our own in the Old Continent, carving out a gap between the North American eagles and the Asian dragons. Put before the mirror, the reflection that is returned to us is that this place does not exist. Europe – let alone Spain – weighs what it weighs in the international arena. We are the front of the United States. And we no longer have the Ministry of Defense to spare. If you don't care about the color of money, buy shares of US arms companies. We are at war, and not everyone loses when that happens.
We should not be blinded by this Atlantic and militaristic euphoria in which it is difficult to recognize ourselves. Doing what is morally due, or what is possible, does not have to be seasoned with the sauce of enthusiasm. And these days there is some confusion, particularly in the Spanish Executive, eager to leave behind the results in the regional elections with something that resembles a resounding success. What is happening in Madrid is not good news. They are decisions, most of them unavoidable, that make our world a worse place in exchange for trying to avoid an even less flattering scenario. We should not forget the premise that there is really nothing to celebrate.
The bill for the war scenario comes to us month by month with the inflation data. In June we have exceeded two digits (10.2%) and no one dares to predict the end of the price escalation. Ukraine puts the dead, and we, the progressive impoverishment of our population. There is not an ounce of sarcasm in the previous sentence. Simply the verification of a fact that will have intense consequences in the theater of operations of domestic politics. In addition to the loss of purchasing power, it is also necessary to discount greater difficulties for the public powers to continue drawing checkbooks, since the debt-free bar has said enough is enough and the price of money will continue to rise. Germany's plans, as published yesterday by the media in that country, are to return to fiscal discipline in 2023. If Chancellor Olaf Scholz takes that path, there will be no way to justify that countries like Spain continue to be installed in the fanciful limbo of an expansive budget. The NATO summit is and will be historic. A success, no doubt. The paradox is that being a success we have nothing to celebrate.
