Saving President Sánchez from NATO's 5% target
- No journalists present and no questions
- The diplomats and military personnel who have had to face the music
No matter how many times ministers, pundits and media outlets sympathetic to the daily rhetoric coming out of Moncloa repeat it, NATO has not exempted Pedro Sánchez from reaching 5% of GDP for defence and security by 2035.
What the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Dutchman Mark Rutte, has admitted, in agreement with the 31 allied partners, is to grant Spain a kind of extension until 2029. In exchange, President Sánchez assures in his letter of 19 June that his coalition government ‘will allocate 2.1% of spending which, according to estimates by our Armed Forces,’ Sánchez claims, ‘is sufficient investment to acquire and maintain all the personnel, equipment and infrastructure requested by the Alliance,’ the president argues.
This is how we should understand the reply dated Sunday, 22 June, from Mark Rutte to the letter sent to him four days earlier by President Sánchez in the same format. The politician at the head of the Alliance confirms to the Spanish leader that ‘NATO will grant Spain the necessary flexibility to determine its own sovereign path’, as requested by Pedro Sánchez.
A ‘sovereign path’ with which, by dedicating up to 2.1% of GDP, Spain ‘must achieve the Capability Goal to which it committed at the meeting of defence ministers on 5 June and the necessary annual resources as a percentage of GDP, as well as present its own annual plans’.
But it would be most prudent to wait until 25 June, the key day of the summit at which the heads of state or government of the 32 allied nations will give their final approval to the NATO communiqué, once they have taken centre stage and captured the world's attention at their annual meeting in The Hague (Netherlands) and outlined their defence investments for the next ten years.
No journalists present and no questions
Yes, indeed. We will have to wait a little over 48 hours because President Sánchez, in his ‘urgent’ appearance – as he himself described it – in the empty press room of the Moncloa Palace, announced with great fanfare that ‘Spain has reached a historic agreement with NATO’. ‘A success,’ he said, ‘because it will allow Spain to continue to be a leading global player, not only in the field of defence and security, but also in the economic and multilateral spheres’.
With journalists summoned by videoconference to listen to the presidential statement without the possibility of asking any questions, Pedro Sánchez boasted that Spain will continue to be a ‘key member of the Alliance’ and will contribute in proportion to its capabilities, ‘without having to increase its defence spending or reach 5% of GDP’. The rest of NATO's partners will do so, i.e. 31 nations, but Spain will not...
Last Sunday, Alliance negotiators presented a final draft agreement to increase direct military spending to 3.5% of GDP and overall security spending to 1.5%. According to diplomatic sources consulted, the document agreed upon by Rutte's team was considered ‘accepted’ if no comments were submitted by 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, 22 June, as was the case.
Following the guidelines issued by President Sánchez through the head of the Presidency's cabinet, Diego Rubio, the replacement of the current Minister for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service, Óscar López, politicians, diplomats and senior Spanish military officials accredited to NATO have had to deploy their skills to obtain a temporary exemption of 5%. This is a kind of reprieve that, a few years later, will mean a considerable extra effort for the government team that will sooner or later replace the coalition led by the self-styled Captain Sánchez.
In addition to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, the main burden of the negotiations has fallen on two diplomats. Diego Martínez Belío, Secretary of State for Foreign and Global Affairs since December 2023, who was previously Albares' chief of staff. And, of course, Spain's permanent representative to NATO since October 2022, Ambassador Federico Torres.
The diplomats and military personnel who have had to face the music
The Secretary General for Defence Policy, Admiral Juan Francisco Martínez Núñez, has also played a leading role. He has been advising Minister Margarita Robles since she took over the Defence portfolio in June 2018. He accompanies her to all NATO meetings, as he is responsible for bilateral relations with other states and with international security and defence organisations.
In relation to the Hague summit, Admiral Martínez Núñez has delegated much of his responsibilities to the Director General of Defence Policy, Lieutenant General Fernando López del Pozo, who since June 2021 has been responsible for planning and developing defence policy.
The Chief of the Defence Staff (JEMAD), Admiral Teodoro López Calderón, has also played a leading role. With him, his representative in Brussels before the NATO Military Committee since last September, Admiral José María Núñez Torrente. Among the main functions of the latter are also those of looking after Spain's interests before the aforementioned Committee and informing the JEMAD of the decisions taken.
The advisory body to the president on national security, the Department of National Security, whose director since November 2023 is Air Force General Loreto Gutiérrez, has also been involved in the field of its activities.
All of them, in one way or another, spurred on by the Moncloa, have tried to mobilise their counterparts so that some of the allied leaders would agree to align themselves with Spain in its rejection of the 5 per cent proposed by Mark Rutte. For Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, with a GDP much higher than Spain's, 3.5% plus 1.5% represents a very high outlay. But, barring any last-minute surprises, no nation has joined Sánchez in his rejection.
All diplomatic efforts to rally support for Sánchez's cause have come to nothing, because the Spanish President of the Government has virtually no influence among his European counterparts. Thus, all diplomatic efforts by Albares and Robles's immediate entourage to align third countries with Spain's position have been fruitless. On Wednesday, 25 June, we will know the reality of what the 32 NATO members have agreed upon and what Spain's role will be.