The Diplomat
The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, assured yesterday before her EU counterparts that Spain will participate in the training mission of the European Union in Ukraine, officially launched yesterday in Brussels, with the training of up to 2,400 military personnel per year.
Robles participated yesterday in Brussels in the Council of Foreign Affairs and Defense of the European Union, in which the Member States approved the launching of the European Union Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine), whose objective is to improve the military capacity of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.
EUMAM Ukraine has a non-executive mandate to provide individual, collective and specialized training to up to 15,000 members of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the territory of at least 20 EU member states. EUMAM was formally approved by the Council on October 17 for an initial duration of two years, at the request of EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell. The operation will have a budget of 107 million euros, in addition to the 16 million euros that the Member States will have to contribute for ammunition and training material, which were approved yesterday by the Council within the framework of the European Peace Support Fund (ESF).
During her intervention, Robles affirmed that “the support to the fight waged by Ukraine for its sovereignty, dignity and self-defense must now be extended to the training of its Armed Forces” and assured, in this sense, that Spain could train up to 2,400 Ukrainian soldiers per year in the new Toledo Training Command.
“We have made an offer to train 400 military personnel every two months”, she indicated. “To date, 19 soldiers have been trained in Zaragoza, who have already returned to their country” (trained in the use of the Aspide anti-aircraft system) and “now we have 21 Ukrainians being trained in Almeria (in the use of the 105/14 howitzer), 64 in Toledo and another five in Madrid”, she continued. It is a very important way of helping Ukraine’s legitimate defense,” she added.
Margarita Robles recalled that Russia also carries out destabilizing actions in the Sahel area and North Africa and assured, in this regard, that “Spain has always been deeply committed to Mali” and will continue in that country as long as the EUTM training mission continues, and will also support a new mission in Niger, should the Council decide to launch it, with liaison officers. “The EU presence in the Sahel is essential at this time for stability in the area and the fight against terrorism,” she warned.
As for the process of developing the European Union’s Strategic Compass, the minister reiterated Spain’s willingness to promote it during the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the Union, in the second half of 2023, and recalled that Spain has committed to carry out the first LIVEX exercise of the Rapid Deployment Capability, which will allow the Union to deploy in an agile way a modular force of up to 5,000 military personnel.
Margarita Robles also held bilateral meetings yesterday in Brussels with her counterparts from Italy, Guido Crosetto, and Estonia, Kalle Laanet, and attended a working lunch of EU defense ministers with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov (by videoconference). This lunch coincides with the arrival in Bulgaria of several Spanish Eurofighters in the framework of NATO’s reinforced air surveillance on the eastern flank. Several Bulgarian and Spanish fighter jets are jointly carrying out air policing tasks from yesterday until December 2.
