<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Defense Minister Margarita Robles asserted this Thursday in Brussels that 2% of GDP for military spending "is sufficient" for Spain to meet the capability targets requested by NATO.</strong></h4> Margarita Robles made these statements to the press before participating in the North Atlantic Council Defense Ministers' meeting, held at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. At the meeting, the defense ministers of the 32 countries analyzed the lines of work that make up the roadmap for the Alliance's next meeting (which will take place in twenty days in The Hague), including those related to deterrence and defense, strengthening industrial capabilities, and increasing defense investment. The Allies also agreed on a new set of 2025 Capability Targets and the development of the Defense Production Action Plan. On the eve of the Brussels meeting, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that allies need “more resources, forces, and capabilities to be prepared to face any threat and to fully implement collective defense plans.” To achieve this, he warned, “we will need significantly more defense spending; that is the foundation of everything.” In this context, Rutte has repeatedly proposed increasing defense spending to five percent by 2032, with 3.5 percent dedicated to direct military investment and 1.5 percent to related expenditure on military maintenance. The United States has already announced that it will bring the five percent target, which has the support of the majority of allies, to the Hague Summit. “We believe that, to meet this capability target, meeting two percent is sufficient,” Robles assured the press. "The Security and Defense Plan we have approved, which allows us to reach two percent of GDP, will allow us to increase the capabilities required by the Atlantic Alliance." "It's not helpful to talk about fixed percentages, because those percentages can change depending on many circumstances," warned Margarita Robles, who asserted that the position in favor of five percent is not "unanimous" within NATO and that other countries, like Spain, also advocate for more "flexibility" when setting spending targets. In any case, Robles asserted that the Spanish government has no intention of vetoing any decision on this matter at the NATO Summit because Spain is "an ally that builds, that contributes, never an ally that objects or argues. We respect everyone's position, and we want them to respect ours as well, but always in a climate of dialogue and trust." During her address to her counterparts, the minister affirmed that Spain has "full confidence in the potential, competitiveness, and advanced technological capacity of the Spanish defense industry" to develop the Security and Defense Plan and warned of "the importance of adapting each country's defense investment commitment to the situation and capabilities it already contributes to the Alliance." "Our country fulfills its commitments to NATO, both with contingents deployed in Latvia, Romania, and Slovakia, and with high-readiness units assigned to the Reaction Force," she added. In addition to participating in the specific sessions of the ministerial meeting, Margarita Robles held bilateral meetings with the Defense Ministers of Germany, Boris Pistorius, and Ukraine, Rustem Umerov, and with the Special Representative of the NATO Secretary General for the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, Italy's Irene Fellin.
