Ángel Collado
Between pressure from NATO and the expected disassociation of the far left from the coalition government and its partners, Pedro Sánchez has been forced to join the European operation to send tanks to Ukraine. Spain will contribute some of the most antiquated Leopard model units bought from Germany almost 30 years ago, which the army has had idle for the past decade.
The head of the Spanish government is accustomed to assuming or accepting the populist positions of its allies in almost all areas, from the economy to feminism, but not in foreign policy when it comes to fulfilling its commitments to the Atlantic Alliance. Although by dragging his feet, with all kinds of dissimulation and always in last place, Sánchez is trying to look good in his plans to support the Ukrainian armed forces in their fight against the invasion of Putin’s troops.
Since Spain hosted the NATO summit last June, Sánchez has been trying to cultivate his image as a leader with international projection. The objective is twofold:
Complying with the Atlantic Alliance serves both purposes for Sánchez, as well as countering the fact that he presides over the only European cabinet with communist ministers among its members. Among the Podemos and Izquierda Unida incumbents, almost a quarter of the executive rejects giving military aid to Ukraine from the very first moment of the war unleashed by Russia.
Of this populist or far-left sector of the executive, only the vice-president and head of the labour portfolio, Yolanda Díaz, has refrained from openly criticising the sending of tanks to Zelenski’s forces.
Podemos, like the Catalan and Basque pro-independence parties such as ERC and Bildu, which support Sánchez in power, remain on the anti-Atlantist equidistance: they consider that providing modern armoured vehicles to Ukrainian forces is contributing to ‘the escalation of war’ and postulate negotiations with Putin as the only way out of the conflict.
Internal dissent in the executive does not go beyond dialectical disagreement. Each sector of the social-communist cabinet cultivates its image and looks after its public. Neither Podemos is considering breaking up the government, nor can Sánchez dismiss ministers who disagree with his foreign policy. The pact with Pablo Iglesias gave a fixed quota for the podemites and their supporters, a vice-presidency and five portfolios, and they administer them among themselves.
Sánchez himself, in order to strike a balance between his partners and NATO commitments, has always left Spain behind in military aid to Ukraine. He went from saying that he would only provide defensive material, uniforms and protective helmets, to delivering ammunition of all kinds, light weapons and grenade launchers. It then sent artillery and anti-aircraft missile systems, always half secretly, to the extent that it was NATO or the Ukrainians who made the Spanish contributions known.
In the case of the Leopard tanks, Germany’s decision to finally agree to provide Zelenski with heavy armour and tracked vehicles has forced the coalition government to follow suit. The Army will now have to overhaul a number of the 53 units stored in Zaragoza of the oldest model, the so-called Leopard 2A4, which was purchased directly from the German manufacturer in the 1990s.
The Spanish Armed Forces have a total of 108 tanks from this batch, half of which are still in service in Ceuta and Melilla. The rest of the Army’s Leopards, another 239, are of the more modern model (the 2E) already manufactured in Spain under German patent and distributed among the mechanised brigades based in Madrid, Cordoba and Badajoz.
Overall, the Spanish armoured units that are organised on the basis of the Leopards are the key to the Spanish land-based deterrent force deployed on NATO’s southern border, and to Spain’s own national defence against its North African neighbour. Hence, in addition to Sánchez’s usual reservations or simple discretion when it comes to helping Ukraine, there are now the limitations of the Spanish Armed Forces, which can only resort to their oldest tanks that have been out of service for 11 years to meet the requirements of the Atlantic Alliance.
