PP and PSOE agree to demand that the Government set a timetable to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP

The PP and the PSOE will demand this Thursday that the Government establish a calendar so that Spain fulfills the commitment made before NATO to increase defense spending up to 2% of GDP. Both groups have agreed on an amendment to one of the resolutions that the PP has presented on account of the debate on the state of the nation. “A defense budget increase scenario will be promoted that will allow the goal of 2% of GDP set at the 2014 Wales Summit to be achieved,” says the text proposed by the Socialists and accepted by the PP.

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The PP resolution originally required the Government to pass a law that would set the path for increasing the defense budget, but the group led by Cuca Gamarra has accepted an amendment that lowers the content of the text but will allow the PP to influence the open division within the governing coalition. United We Can has already expressed its rejection of increasing military spending.

The PSOE will thus support the complete PP document on Foreign and Defense Policy and which, in addition, calls for "strengthening the relationship with the United States and supporting the expansion of the military contingent requested for the Rota base." It also calls for "supporting and promoting in all its dimensions the new strategic concept approved at the NATO Summit" held in Madrid at the end of June.

In the new strategic design of NATO, the members of the alliance are committed to "territorial integrity" of all the allies, points to Russia and speaks of the “instrumentalization of migration”.

The increase in military spending has been precisely one of the gaps that the coalition has had in recent weeks after Sánchez promised, coinciding with the NATO summit in Madrid, to increase it to 2% of GDP in 2029.

In fact, in the first Council of Ministers after that announcement, which already stirred up his left-wing allies, an extraordinary credit for Defense of 1,000 million euros was approved. The second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, criticized having found out through the media, but in Moncloa they argued that she had passed through the Commission of Secretaries and Undersecretaries, which is the prelude to the Council of Ministers, without anyone showing her opposition.

Díaz demanded the urgent convening of a meeting of the monitoring table of the coalition agreement to address the matter. However, Moncloa did not even answer him and refused to convene the commission in which PSOE and United We Can sit before the debate on the state of the nation.

United We Can has made no noise in this debate on this issue and has not even included it in its resolution proposals, something that ERC has done, which has demanded that military spending be reduced and dedicated to social policies.

However, the PSOE maintains its commitment to gradually increase defense spending under the argument that "security is not guaranteed" in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Regarding the clash with United We Can, he maintains that military and foreign policy is a prerogative that corresponds to the President of the Government.