Sumar urges the Government to withdraw Spain from NATO and denounce agreements with the US on Rota and Morón

Eduardo González Sumar, the minority party in Pedro Sánchez's coalition government, has denounced "US foreign policy, characterized by the explicit use of force and threats" and NATO's subordination "to geopolitical and economic interests unrelated to a multilateral conception of international security." Therefore, it has urged the government to begin the process of withdrawing Spain from NATO and to denounce military agreements with Washington, including the shared use and military presence at the Rota and Morón air bases. In a non-binding motion registered on January 23 for debate in the Foreign Affairs Committee and published this week in the Official Gazette of the Spanish Parliament (BOCG), the Plurinational Parliamentary Group Sumar recalls that Spain's accession to NATO in 1982, ratified in a consultative referendum in 1986, was "explicitly conditional" on compliance with "a series of fundamental commitments," such as "non-integration into the integrated military structure, the prohibition of the installation, storage, or introduction of nuclear weapons on Spanish territory, and the progressive reduction of the United States military presence in Spain." "However," the motion continues, "these commitments have subsequently been breached or substantially altered." The text also notes that "NATO has undergone a profound transformation," assuming "functions that exceed the strictly defensive character foreseen in its founding treaty," and that this evolution "has been accompanied by a progressive distancing from the United Nations collective security system and the fundamental principles of international law." Furthermore, the motion continues, the foreign policy of the United States, “characterized by unilateralism, the explicit use of force and threats as instruments of foreign action, as in the recent military operation carried out in Venezuela or the interference in and threats to the sovereignty of Cuba, Colombia, Canada, and Greenland—with Denmark being one of the founding members of NATO itself—decisively conditions the actions of the Alliance, subordinating it to geopolitical and economic interests that are foreign to a multilateral conception of international security.” “These interventions have contributed to a climate of global instability, weakening multilateralism and normalizing the use of force as a legitimate tool of foreign policy,” and, in this context, “far from acting as a counterweight, NATO has reinforced this logic through its military expansion, its strategic alignment under US hegemony, and its push for an arms race in Europe,” Sumar denounces. The non-binding resolution also recalls that, “currently, NATO membership also implies commitments for the Spanish State regarding military spending, such as the 5% of GDP increase in the Defense budget promoted by the Alliance, although on this occasion the Government agreed to allocate 2.1%.” “In contrast to this NATO model, numerous resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly have reiterated the need to move towards disarmament, the reduction of military spending, and the promotion of a culture of peace,” it continues. The denunciation of the Treaty For all these reasons, Sumar considers that the denunciation of the North Atlantic Treaty constitutes “an essential first step towards a security model based on human security, multilateralism, conflict prevention, and the strengthening of the United Nations system, an approach incompatible with NATO’s current orientation.” Furthermore, “in accordance with this, all bilateral military agreements should be denounced, such as those involving the shared use of military bases on Spanish territory,” it concludes. In this regard, Sumar points out that the North Atlantic Treaty itself provides for unilateral denunciation by the States Parties and that both the Spanish Constitution and the 2014 Law on Treaties and Other International Agreements regulate the internal procedure for authorizing and formalizing such denunciation, with the necessary involvement of the Cortes Generales (Spanish Parliament). According to the Vienna Convention, denunciation is the legal process by which a State notifies its intention to withdraw from a previously signed international treaty. Therefore, the Non-Legislative Proposal urges the Government to “initiate the procedures for denouncing the North Atlantic Treaty” and to “initiate the procedures for denouncing all bilateral military agreements signed with the United States of America, expressly including the agreements relating to the shared use and military presence at the Rota and Morón bases.”

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