The Diplomat
Spain and the United States will sign the agreement for the renewal of the US-Spanish Defense Agreement and, therefore, for the stationing of two additional US destroyers at the Rota Naval Base (Cadiz) before the next meeting of the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, which will take place on May 12 at the White House.
This was reported yesterday by sources from the Ministry of Defense to the agencies Efe and Europa Press and later confirmed to the press by the head of the Department, Margarita Robles, during the ceremony commemorating the centenary of the first medical air evacuation in Spain, presided over by Queen Letizia at the Cuatro Vientos Air Base. The agreement could be signed in Spain on a date yet to be determined, but in any case before May 12.
The expansion of U.S. military capabilities in Rota is included in the Joint Declaration adopted by Sánchez and Biden at the La Moncloa complex (their first major bilateral meeting) on the eve of the NATO Summit held in June 2022 in Madrid. Specifically, the agreement envisages sending two more destroyers to the base in Rota, which will join the four destroyers that the US has had in Rota since 2014 and 2015 (USS Carney, USS Donald Cook, USS Porter and USS Ross), integrated in NATO’s anti-missile shield. As reported last October by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ángeles Moreno, the objective of both governments is for the two destroyers to arrive in Rota between 2024 and 2026. Defense sources expect the ships to arrive between 2024 and 2025, at a rate of one destroyer per year.
The agreement with the United States generated a new political storm within the coalition government, after the PP declared its support for the measure and Unidas Podemos (the government’s minority partner) announced its intention to vote against it in Congress. In fact, that was what happened in July last year during the vote on a PP motion for a resolution agreed with the PSOE to promote the increase of the Defense budget and which urged the Government to “support the expansion of the military contingent requested for the Rota base”. The text (non-binding, but with “symbolic” importance) was approved with 222 votes in favor, 68 against (including the seats of Unidas Podemos) and 55 abstentions.
The 1988 U.S.-Spanish Defense Agreement expired in May 2021 and the reform of the text would require the support of the Lower House. However, the treaty itself establishes extensions for periods of one year through “administrative development agreements”. Therefore, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense consider that in order to amend the text (and, therefore, to allow the arrival of the two ships) only an administrative agreement is necessary, which will not necessarily have to pass through Congress, except for information purposes, as it happened with three other previous amendments. Precisely, the 2012 amendment, which preceded the arrival of the four previous destroyers, allows the two parties to “enter into administrative agreements for the development” of the agreement.
To that end, the Council of Ministers authorized last January “the negotiation of an agreement in development of the Second Protocol of Amendment to the Defense Cooperation Agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United States of America of December 1, 1988, for the stationing of two additional U.S. destroyers at the Rota naval base.” This expansion of the U.S. military presence in Spain, he continued, will contribute to “strengthening NATO’s ballistic missile defense system” in the face of “the new security challenges posed in our environment, which require maximum coordination to continue to maintain the security of Spain and the United States and the mutual contribution of both countries to the Atlantic Alliance and international security”.
