The increase is due to Afghanistan withdrawal and Iraq’s new contingent./ Photo: Ministry of Defence
The Diplomat. Madrid
The Ministry of Defence, last year, spent a total of 1.034 million euros on maintaining military operations overseas, and involving more than 2.200 troops, according to figures issued by the department headed by Pedro Morenés.
It is the first time since the transition to democracy that Spain has broken through the threshold of spending one billion euros on this objective. Until now, the highest cost for Armed Forces overseas missions occurred in 2011, at 861,3 million euros. With the arrival of the PP in power, spending dropped to 616,8 million in 2014, in line with budgetary restriction applied to all levels of the government.
The increase in 2015 of almost 400 million euros is due, above all, to the cost of the final withdrawal from Afghanistan and the arrival at the same time of a new contingent in Iraq to train soldiers in the Iraqi Army in the fight against the Islamic State. In addition, there were two new missions under the auspices of NATO in the Baltic States and Turkey: four fighter planes were deployed to Estonia to monitor airspace, and a Patriot anti-missile battery was placed on the Turkish-Syrian border.
In addition, the Government has had to simultaneously finance various, very numerous and very distant operations from Spain which has caused costs to rise considerably. In 2016 Afghanistan will go from being one of the operations with most troops to one with only 21 which will make a notable reduction in spending. However, the operation in Iraq with 300 troops is forecast to continue, as well as others that could prove costly, such as the Lebanon, with 602 troops; Turkey with 129; and Operation Atalanta, the fight against piracy in the Indian Ocean, with 340.
Normally, the Ministry of Defence reveals the financial costs of the overseas operations in the year under way to Congress every December. However, it was not possible for him to appear before Parliament last month as it had been dissolved. This cost does not appear in the ordinary expenditure of the Department but is financed by an open-ended credit.
