<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Defense Minister Margarita Robles warned this Tuesday in Brussels that it would be a "mistake" to raise defense spending to 5%, as demanded by US President Donald Trump and proposed by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, without "clearly" analyzing the capabilities the Alliance needs and "the capacity of the European defense industry to assume that amount of money."</strong></h4> This was stated by the minister to the press at the end of the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC), a configuration of defense ministers, which addressed, among other issues, the implementation of the White Paper on European Defense and the ReArm Europe Plan. "Spain's position is very clear," Robles stated. “Spain is a reliable, responsible, and serious ally. We have committed to reaching two percent of GDP, and we are going to do so this year” with the National Plan for the Development and Promotion of Technology and the Security and Defense Industry, announced on April 22 by the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez. The plan aims to reach the two percent commitment to NATO and the EU rearmament plan by 2025. “We have made it very clear that this represents a very significant effort of €10.471 billion more, in addition to what is in the defense budget, and we have explained that our priority at this time is to meet that two percent,” the minister continued. In Robles' opinion, “at this time, it is not appropriate to talk about new percentages” because “the important thing is to see what capabilities are needed.” “Talking about percentages without explaining the reasons for those percentages, without clearly analyzing what capabilities we need and, above all, the capacity of the European defense industry to assume that amount of money could lead to distortions,” she warned. “We would be making a mistake if we set a percentage and then European industries were unable to afford that amount, resulting from this significant increase that we intend to present at the NATO Summit in The Hague,” said Robles, who asserted that Spain's position has been “very well received by other countries that are on the same page.”
