Eduardo González
The Council of Ministers has once again resorted to the Contingency Fund to finance the peace missions that Spain maintains abroad, almost for an amount of more than 582 million euros.
Specifically, this past Tuesday the Council of Ministers authorized the application of the Contingency Fund to finance credit modifications, for a total amount of 581,254,377 euros, intended to cover the expenses incurred by the participation of the Spanish Armed Forces in maintenance operations. peace. Of these 581.2 million euros, 55,040,567 euros correspond to personnel expenses, 170,122,420 euros to current expenses on goods and services and 356,091,390 euros to real investments.
The Contingency Fund is a mechanism for expanding credit to face unforeseen situations and to which the Government often resorts (especially since 1998) to finance operations abroad, since the General State Budgets usually dedicate a very small game for these missions. The parliamentary groups have repeatedly asked in Congress that this model be changed and that the financing of the missions be also included in the item allocated to Defense of the General Budgets.
According to Moncloa, the different missions in which the Spanish Armed Forces participate serve three major strategic objectives: providing stability and security, fighting terrorism, and deterring and defending allied territory.
To make such strategic objectives effective, the Council of Ministers of December 27, 2023 extended until December 31, 2024 the participation of units of the Armed Forces and military observers in military missions abroad. The objective of this new credit extension is, precisely, to provide budgetary coverage for Spanish participation in peace operations corresponding to the first period of 2024.
In April 2017, the Ministry of Defense (at that time, with Dolores de Cospedal as head) obtained a contingency fund of more than 704 million euros. Likewise, in the 2018 Budgets an allocation of just 314 million was allocated for peace missions, which forced the Government to approve in March (with Mariano Rajoy) and in October (with Pedro Sánchez) two contingency funds of more than 785 million (550 million and 235 million respectively) to finance these operations.
Likewise, in April 2019, the Council of Ministers approved a contingency fund of almost 550 million euros to the Ministry of Defense to meet the expenses incurred by peace missions and, in July 2022, the Council of Ministers authorized a fund contingency of almost one billion euros, as well as an extraordinary credit to the Ministry of Defense, to “meet the extraordinary expenses of the Armed Forces caused by the invasion of Ukraine.” To do this, it was necessary to overcome the firm opposition of the then minority partner of the coalition Government, Unidas Podemos, in the midst of the debate generated within the Executive by the decision of President Pedro Sánchez to allocate, between now and 2029, two percent of GDP to defense spending.
In 2023, the Council of Ministers authorized two more operations of this type: on April 11, with a contingency fund of 581,254,141 euros to meet the expenses incurred by the participation of the Spanish Armed Forces in peacekeeping operations; and on July 25, with another contingency fund of 471,847,438.96 euros with the same objective.
