Díaz: “We will not fix anything by raising the military budget, we must first reorganise defence in Europe”

Ane Barcos/Eduardo González The second vice president of the Government and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, warned this Monday in Brussels that, at this time, the debate “is not the rise or fall of military spending” in an EU that “has a larger defense budget than Russia”, but the “reorganization of the collective defense of Europe”, which has made the “serious mistake” of having “outsourced its defense to none other than the United States”. The debate “is not about raising or lowering the military or defense budget in Europe, but about reorganizing defense policy in Europe”, declared Díaz, leader of Sumar (the minority party in Pedro Sánchez's coalition government), upon her arrival in Brussels to participate in the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumers Council. Sumar's position, she said, "is well known: the staunch defense of a defense policy model that has to be European." According to Díaz, "it is a serious mistake that the EU has delegated, has outsourced defense, to none other than the United States." For this reason, she continued, "we are not fixing anything by increasing the military budget, what we need to know is what defense policy we are going to practice in the 21st century, at a very complex time of geopolitical recession and in which our commitment is clear to continue supporting Ukraine." "Europe concentrates more budget in budgetary terms than Russia itself and, therefore, it is not about raising or lowering the military or defense budget in Europe, but rather about reorganizing defense policy in Europe," she added. One of the premises for this, she continued, is "to take stock of what our country has: we have a budget allocation of 1.2 percent, of which we have only executed 0.9 percent so far." “Of those 13 billion, by the way, 7 billion are destined to support the troops in our country,” but, “beyond all that,” it is necessary to address “what defense policy in the 21st century Spain needs within the framework of the EU, this is the debate we have to have.” Announcement by Pedro Sánchez Díaz's statements come after the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, announced last Thursday in Brussels that Spain is willing to make the necessary efforts to reach two percent of GDP in defense spending before the initially planned deadline of 2029. Sánchez's announcement took place within the framework of the extraordinary summit of the European Council on Ukraine and defense, in which the heads of State and Government of the EU gave the green light to the 'Rearm Europe' plan, promoted by the European Commission and which foresees up to 800 billion euros in investment in defense. Sánchez also announced in Brussels that this coming Thursday he will call together “all the leaders of the parliamentary groups, the head of the opposition and the rest of the parliamentary groups, except for Vox, Vox will not be in the equation because we already have a very clear idea of what Vox's vision is”, to “share information and some reflections and also the positions that the Spanish Government has been maintaining for three years, since the beginning of the war”. Sumar, PSOE and PP Precisely, the spokesperson for Sumar and Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, announced this Monday at a press conference that Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz will meet this Tuesday to address these issues and warned that his party will not accept, “in any way”, that this increase in investment in defence affects “any part of the Welfare State”. For her part, the spokesperson for the PSOE, Esther Peña, declared this Monday that both her party and Sumar agree that “investing in defence is investing in democracy, in security”. Likewise, the secretary general of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, also warned on Monday that the leader of her party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is not going to issue any “blank cheque” to Pedro Sánchez and announced that, during the meeting on Thursday, he is going to ask the president of the Government that any agreement on defence matters be “parliamentarily ratified”.

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