The Diplomat
The government has assured that Spain has no intention of withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty (OST) despite the recent decision by the United States and Russia to abandon this agreement.
The Treaty on Open Skies is “one of the fundamental pillars of the Confidence- and Security-Building Measures in Europe, as it contributes to the transparency of military activities in Europe and facilitates the monitoring of compliance with arms control agreements, which affects security and stability”, the government stated in a written reply to the Vox Parliamentary Group on 4 January.
“Spain has not considered withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty, as it continues to be a crucial element of the confidence-building framework for improving transparency and security in the Euro-Atlantic area”, it continued. “In this respect Spain will continue, together with its allies, to implement the Open Skies Treaty, as it is considered to have clear added value for our conventional architecture of arms control and cooperative security”, it added.
The main objectives of the Open Skies Treaty, which has been in force since 1 January 2002, are to foster military transparency and discourage the arms race of its more than 30 Member States. To this end, the Treaty has a programme of unarmed aerial reconnaissance flights over each and every one of the participating countries, through which it is possible to obtain information on the troops and military operations of the countries flown over and to check their military movements and arms control measures.
Last November, the then US president, Donald Trump, confirmed his country’s withdrawal from the treaty on the grounds that Russia had “failed to fulfil its obligations” by preventing air surveillance over Kaliningrad or the border with Georgia, where, according to Washington, it would have deployed nuclear weapons or conducted major military manoeuvres. At first the Kremlin expressed its “regret” at Washington’s decision, but on 15 January the Russian government announced its forthcoming withdrawal from the Treaty because the US’s withdrawal had “undermined confidence” among the Member States and because Moscow had not received “the support of the US’s allies” in its attempts to “maintain the viability” of the agreement.
According to the Spanish government, “the situation generated by the withdrawal of the United States of America from the OST exacerbates the deterioration of the arms control regime in Europe and the set of confidence-building measures, which is all the more serious as it is preceded by Russia’s suspension of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), the lack of agreement on renewing the Vienna Document and the recent conflicts in the east of the continent”. Both the parliamentary question and its answer were drafted before Russia’s departure was announced.
“In a direct manner”, it continued, “the withdrawal of the US will involve a redistribution of flight and financial quotas (Spain is currently the eighth largest contributor) among the member countries”. “However, Spain continues to uphold the validity of the Treaty and is working on initiatives that will promote a new framework for dialogue in Europe on security and stability, such as the Structured Dialogue process within the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which our country has chaired for 2020”, it added.
