The Diplomat
Both the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, assured yesterday that Spain will send new weapons to Ukraine “if necessary” and “in very near dates”, but they preferred not to give more details “for security reasons”.
“The Minister of Defense has indicated that yes, that is going to be the case”, declared José Manuel Albares during an interview on TVE in relation to the possible shipment of weapons. This shipment, which will be carried out “if necessary”, will be destined to the Ukrainian Government and Army, assured the minister, who avoided further details because “if we really want to defend the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and, above all, protect those defenseless civilians, the less we talk about armament, what kind and where it enters, the better it will be”.
Apart from that, Albares assured that the EU continues to prepare “all necessary measures to achieve the economic collapse of Putin’s Russia.” “There is still room to be able to further disconnect the Russian economy from the European economy and, therefore, also from the global economy”, such as “blocking the entry of Russian ships into ports and closing space for the oligarchs”, he added.
For her part, Margarita Robles announced yesterday during her visit to the Navantia shipyard facilities, in the Ferrol estuary, that the Government is going to make a new shipment of arms to Ukraine “very soon”, in line “with what other European Union countries are doing”, but she did not want to give more details “for security reasons” and because “they are not easy shipments, because there are other countries involved”.
Eva-Mari Liimets
On the other hand, Albares received yesterday in Madrid the Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eva-Mari Liimets, who at the joint press conference afterwards declared that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has generated “the most serious security crisis in Europe since the Second World War”. “Estonia is a country bordering Russia, and obviously for us the security situation in Europe has changed dramatically,” she continued. “Right now, Estonia does not feel a direct military threat to our country, but we do feel that we need to continue to strengthen defense and deterrence in NATO because of how much the security landscape in Europe is changing,” she added.
Both Albares and Liimets agreed that there is no “fast track” for Ukraine’s entry into the EU because, in order to do so, the legal and law-guaranteeing procedures and requirements set by the EU must be fulfilled. “There is a common future for Ukraine within the European family” which does not necessarily involve accession, Albares said. Also, the Estonian minister recalled that the EU has sent aid to Ukraine, after the war, valued at 1.2 billion euros to rebuild the country and to promote democratic reforms interrupted by the war. “Then we could see how long it takes to be able to integrate, we would see,” the minister added.
During the bilateral meeting, Albares and Liimets discussed cooperation in defense and cybersecurity, a field in which, according to the minister, Estonia is a “leading country” from which “Spain will be able to learn”, and which is going to be of particular importance in the current international context. “Putin’s war” represents a “multiple threat”, both “military, disinformative and cybersecurity”, but “Spain is prepared to repel any cybersecurity attack, we have been working on cybersecurity for many years and it does not catch us by surprise”, assured Albares.
On the other hand, Eva-Mari Liimets highlighted the importance of the next NATO summit, to be held in June in Madrid, where the “new strategic concept” of the Alliance for the next ten years is going to be decided. “We hope that this summit will show NATO’s open-door policy,” she said. “We are also going to invite Ukraine and Georgia,” she assured. The presence of the two countries has been discussed on numerous occasions, but so far it has not been confirmed even by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, so the Estonian minister’s words could be interpreted as a first announcement in this direction.
