4w ago

Spain wants exemption from NATO’s 5 percent defense spending target

www.politico.eu

NATO allies will meet in The Hague next week and are expected to agree to significantly boost military expenditure, but Madrid is reluctant.

Spain wants a carve-out from NATO's likely future defense spending goal of 5 percent of GDP, the country's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said ahead of next week's high-stakes alliance summit in The Hague.

"Spain will continue to fulfil its duty in the years and decades ahead and will continue to actively contribute to the European security architecture. However, Spain cannot commit to a specific spending target in terms of GDP at this summit," Sánchez told NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in a letter seen by POLITICO.

Spain has the lowest military spending of any NATO member, allocating just 1.3 percent of its GDP to defense in 2024. Sánchez said earlier this year that Russia didn't pose an immediate security threat to Spain.

32 comments

What chicken shit reasoning they're using here.
- "It doesn't impact us". The most shortsighted, idiotic reason possible.
  
  That is not the argument stated in the article
  Sánchez argued that Spain doesn't need to spend 5 percent of its GDP to fulfill its so-called capability targets, meaning new objectives of weapons inventory agreed by NATO defense ministers earlier this month.
  He also wrote that a 5 percent defense spending goal would jeopardize the country’s welfare system, force the government to increase taxes on the middle class, scale back commitments to the green transition and curtail international development cooperation.
  “It is the legitimate right of every government to decide whether or not they are willing to make those sacrifices,” he wrote.
  Rushing to 5 percent would also force Madrid to buy off-the-shelf equipment instead of fostering its own industrial base, as well as take money away from welfare policies, Sánchez also wrote.
  The Spanish Socialist party is in a coalition with the junior left-wing Sumar party, which opposes increased defense spending and whose members are expected to attend a counter-summit for peace in parallel to the NATO summit.
  
  Isn't that the same reasoning that allowed Hitler to take so much land at the beginning of the war?
- Spain has to deal with millions of pensioners from across Europe retiring there. Germany was complaining anout the drag on it's economy when hundreds of thousands of working age Syrians came into the county during the 2010's. Spain has to spend billions of euros every year caring for residents who don't work, need extra medical care, and displace actual working people. Their economy is incredibly weak as is, they can't justify spending 3x what they currently are on their military.
  
  Every European nation has to deal with waves of retirees leaving the work force. It's no excuse. The general solution is increasing retirement age & per capita productivity whilst cutting down on government spending in other areas unless they fancy debt financing. Different GDP strengths is exactly why it's a % goal rather than an absolute amount to keep things fair.
- It's an absolutely massive amount of money. And it's not temporary while there's a war in Ukraine, it's indefinitely. All because Trump pressured the rest of NATO and wants more money going to his buddies in the weapons industry.
  Even without the US, European NATO countries already spend more than Russia and China (sources from 2024 and 2025). Just how much more should it get?
  
  All because ~~Trump pressured the rest of NATO and wants more money~~ they signed an agreement promising to do so.
- They don't need a reason, really. 5% of GDP is moronic, the number alone is reason enough to pass. Not 5% of the national budget. 5% of GDP. Insane.
A lot of knee-jerk reactions here so to provide some context:
The government will not do it because they are simply unable to. They were barely able to reach 3%. The ruling party and the PM do want to increase the spending but their minor, far-left coalition partner is against it. They would rather spend the money on social programs. The far-left party even voted to exit NATO altogether. They are simply not serious people. The PM finally managed to increase spending to 3% by using executive orders. They simply don't have a path to pass a new budget and increase the spending to 5%. So yeah, it's not the ruling party that's shortsighted, it's their progressive coalition partner who is against any spending on the military.
- Spain used to have a budget of around 1% of their GDP for the military. It was so much that they actually could not spend it. Now that the budget has tripled almost overnight, they are having an internal crisis because there is no way they can use up all that money, even if they overbought 200% of supplies and overpaid for them.
  Increasing military budget is useless, because the service will not improve with it, just the useless spending and inefficiency. And because of the rushed spending, I'm sure the move will increase corruption.
- I think the Spanish just need to get more creative with their spending or rather the accounting of their spending.
  Edit: I'm more forgiving towards Spain for not meeting their goals than other nations because they seem to actually be improving the lives of their citizens, not just austerity bullshit.
  
  Have they tried giving more money to the ultra rich ? I heard it's good for the economy
Why so high a demand!? Even the US only spent 3.38% last year, and Poland spent 4.12%:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/nato-spending-by-country
- Lobby work
Meanwhile, Spain is the world's 8th largest arms exporter
(hey Portugal, this is your chance, take what you want)
- Hehe they already got the good part
Ah, practising the deeply held moral principle of "I'm alright, Jack".
Isn't the current requirement 2%? They want to more than double their budget?
Another PIGS big L.
Spain? Read the room.
Good, I wish NATO would disintegrate and European defence return to the competences of the European Union. I don't want my taxes to benefit the United States neither economically nor strategically. They've proven time and time again they want to go it alone. They want to be bosses of the world and everyone to answer to them. Fuck them.
- Good, I wish NATO would disintegrate and European defence return to the competences of the European Union.
  "Return"? It was never really there.
  I don’t want my taxes to benefit the United States neither economically nor strategically.
  The 5% are not a membership fee that goes to the US. What the US most often got out of NATO was that they defined the standards and requirements, which at some point required American IP and American products to fulfill those. But in the end, the leverage they had was their huge investment in NATO that also benefited other nations; once the American investments end, other nations will fill that void (hopefully).
  Restricting such an alliance to the EU would rule out members like Canada, for example
Huge disappointment from Spain

32 comments