The Diplomat
The General State Budget for 2023, agreed yesterday by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Second Vice President and Minister of Labour, Yolanda Díaz, and subsequently approved by the Council of Ministers, foresees an increase of 6.5% in Defense spending, an increase that rises to almost 26% if the almost 5,000 million euros that will go to “Special Modernization Programs” of the Armed Forces and that “do not compute in the limit of non-financial spending” are included.
This was announced yesterday by the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, in the press conference following the Council of Ministers which approved the preliminary draft of the Budget, which must then pass through Parliament. Specifically, and in spite of the opposition of UN Podemos (minority partner of the Government) to the increase in Defense spending, the PGE foresees an increase of 6.5% in the expenditure corresponding to the Ministry of Defense, to reach 2,500 million Euros in 2023, an increase that will be 8.4% if European funds are included.
Apart from this increase in the Ministry itself (which will be destined mainly to salary increases for the members of the troops and the Armed Forces), the Budget establishes that the total expenditure in Defense will increase up to 25.8 percent (from 9,791 million to 12,317 million Euros) by including the 4,901 million Euros destined to investments in “Special Modernization Programs” of the Armed Forces.
In any case, “these programs do not compute in the non-financial spending limit”, specified the Council of Ministers (and Montero herself at the press conference) in another veiled warning to UNO Podemos, whose spokesman in Congress, Pablo Echenique, had previously assured -in declarations to RNE- that the two government formations had reached an agreement so that Defense spending “would not enter the spending ceiling, something that we are going to have to watch out for”.
This allocation of 4,901 million, “for the most part, corresponds to contracts for the national industry that will generate 22,667 induced jobs”, added the Government. Specifically, according to Montero, these are contracts with companies with agreements with Defense, such as Navantia, Airbus or Indra, which will help to encourage the national industry and to increase investments in R&D&I technology in “a cutting-edge sector which is a spearhead for other areas”. For this reason, the Minister urged to overcome the “excessively militaristic vision of Defense spending”, in a new non-explicit reference to Unidas Podemos.
Likewise, Montero assured that Spain is willing to fulfill Pedro Sánchez’s commitment before NATO to increase Defense spending to two percent of the GDP in the period 2027-2029, because “the President’s commitments are fulfilled”, especially in “something as important as our contribution to international security”, and warned, in another veiled but clear message to Unidas Podemos, that the budget increase in the Ministries of Social Rights and Equality (both in the hands of the minority partner) is 18 and 14%, respectively, much higher than that of Defense.
