Eduardo González
The People’s Party has urged the Government to develop a multi-year program of sustained growth that will allow it to achieve the objective of two percent of GDP for Defense spending “in the shortest period of time possible and in a progressive manner and in no case later of 2029.”
In a Non-Law Proposal presented on March 11 by the Popular Parliamentary Group in Congress for debate in the Defense Commission, it is recalled that, in the last general policy debate on the state of the nation of On July 12 to 14, 2022, a proposed resolution was approved, “at the request of the Popular Parliamentary Group”, in which the Government was urged to “promote a defense budget increase scenario” to achieve the objective of two percent of Gross Domestic Product set at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales.
Specifically, Congress approved in that debate a proposed resolution of the PP agreed with the PSOE to promote the increase of the Defense budget in order to place it at two percent of the GDP, in line with what was decided during the recently held Summit of the NATO in Madrid. Unidas Podemos, the then minority partner of the coalition government, voted against.
The objective of this increase, continues the motion of the PP, is to “modernize and improve the military capabilities of our Armed Forces, while enabling the strengthening of the Technological and Industrial Defense Base, favoring economic growth and highly skilled job creation.”
“This objective, repeatedly cited as necessary by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the successive summits of said Organization held throughout this century, has become a necessity in order to guarantee coverage of Defense needs. from a purely national perspective,” the text continues.
In the opinion of the PP, “the current percentage of around one percent, in which our Defense Budget has been moving, proves, year after year, to be insufficient to meet the costs of new acquisitions, training activities, maintenance of the equipment and material in use and the remuneration of the professional soldiers of our Armed Forces.”
“The recent military operations of a demanding nature, such as the evacuation of compatriots and Afghans with relations with Spain, from Kabul, in 2021, as well as the subsequent invasion of Ukraine by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the vile terrorist attack by Hamas perpetrated on the Israeli people or the growing challenges in the immediate environment of our country, with special impact on the Sahel region, force our country’s efforts in this area of Defense and security to be undertaken with rigor and seriousness. operational capabilities associated with it,” warns the main opposition party.
The President of the Government himself, Pedro Sánchez, “has formally expressed the commitment of the Government of the nation to undertake this upward review process that places Spain’s investment in Defense at the level of two percent of the Gross Domestic Product before finalizing the third decade of the 21st century in which we find ourselves, placing the horizon of achieving this level of investment in the year 2029,” the text continues.
“Given the commitment assumed by the President of the Government to achieve the two percent objective before 2029, it is considered necessary to establish a commitment to a progressive increase on an annual basis, in order to achieve progressively and not all at once the increase cited for “a multi-year program of sustained growth should be designed,” it adds.
For all these reasons, the Non-Law Proposition urges the Government to “develop a multi-year program of sustained growth, which allows achieving the final objective of a defense budget of two percent of GDP in the shortest period of time possible and in an progressively and in no case later than 2029.” Likewise, it requests that the Congress be informed “of the multi-annual programming that is prepared” and that “the first period of said multi-annual programming be undertaken in the preparation of the next General State Budgets.”
