<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Council of Ministers has again used the Contingency Fund to finance Spain's peacekeeping missions abroad, in this case for an amount of almost €650 million.</strong></h4> Specifically, the Council of Ministers authorized this Tuesday the use of the Contingency Fund for an amount of €649,990,810 to finance budgetary modifications, with the aim of covering the expenses incurred by the participation of the Spanish Armed Forces in peacekeeping operations. The various missions in which the Spanish Armed Forces participate, the Council of Ministers recalled, "serve the following three major strategic objectives: providing stability and security, combating terrorism, and deterring and defending allied territory. The Contingency Fund is a credit extension mechanism to address unforeseen situations, which the Government frequently uses (especially since 1998) to finance operations abroad, as the General State Budget typically allocates a very small amount to these missions. Parliamentary groups have repeatedly requested in Congress that this model be changed and that funding for the missions also be included in the Defense allocation of the General Budget. In April 2017, the Ministry of Defense (then headed by Dolores de Cospedal) obtained a contingency fund of more than €704 million. Similarly, in the 2018 Budget, a sum of just €314 million was allocated. million for peacekeeping missions, forcing the Government to approve two contingency funds of more than 785 million euros (550 million and 235 million euros, respectively) in March (under Mariano Rajoy) and October (under Pedro Sánchez) to finance these operations. Likewise, in April 2019, the Council of Ministers approved a contingency fund of almost 550 million euros for the Ministry of Defense to cover the expenses incurred by peacekeeping missions, and in July 2022, the Council of Ministers authorized a contingency fund of almost 1 billion euros, as well as an extraordinary loan for the Ministry of Defense, to "cover the extraordinary expenses of the Armed Forces caused by the invasion of Ukraine." This required overcoming the strong opposition of the then minority partner in the coalition government, Unidas Podemos. In 2023, the Council of Ministers authorized two more operations of this type: in April, with a contingency fund of more than 581 million euros to cover the expenses incurred by the participation of the Spanish Armed Forces in peacekeeping operations; and in July, with another contingency fund of almost €472 million for the same purpose. In 2024, three other operations were approved to cover the expenses incurred by the participation of the Spanish Armed Forces in peacekeeping operations: the first, in April, for a total amount of more than €581 million; the second, in June, for an amount of more than €332.5 million; and the third, in July, for a total amount of almost €564 million. So far this year, the Council of Ministers authorized the use of the Contingency Fund last February for an amount slightly exceeding €567 million. This operation came after the Council of Ministers extended the participation of the Armed Forces until December 31, 2025, on December 17, 2024. Spanish Civil Guard in a series of operations outside national territory.
