The Popular Party and Podemos have reacted on Wednesday to the joint declaration approved during the NATO Summit in The Hague loading against the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, for having signed the text in which there is an increase in spending in defense of states by 5%. But precisely the chief of the Executive has led the opposition to reach that percentage achieving a kind of exception.
In a letter, the secretary general, Mark Rutte, accepts a “flexibility” for Spain to reach its military commitments with less expenditure percentage if possible. The figure to which the government points is a maximum of 2.1%, but in NATO they do not believe it and consider that it will have to be at least 3.5%.
In fact, once the summit was finished, the president of the USA, Donald Trump, lashed out hard against Spain for having achieved that flexibility in his negotiations with the general secretary of the Alliance, Mark Rutte: “It is the only country that will not pay the whole Bad, ”Trump said.
However, both the PP leaders and we can consider that Sanchez has pledged to increase defense spending by 5%. “The farce ended, 5%has been signed”has tweeted the leader of the popular, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, minutes after the end of the summit.
What they explain in Genoa 13 is that Pedro Sánchez “has committed to the philosophy of NATO rearme and with 5% of the GDP to defense spending” in a maximum of ten years “but calm its partners” saying that “he has fooled to the Atlantic Alliance and that he will only pay 2.1%.” “His parliamentary accomplices consist of his lies, but the Popular Party, no,” PP sources settled.
Paradoxically, the PP also criticizes Trump for attacking Spain for not having committed to increase its military expenditure by 5%. “The PP also does not consent to the threats to Spain of the president of the United States, Donald Trump. And less if he intends to use the producers of our country to take revenge on the insolvenience of the president of the Government,” they explain from the popular direction.
The Minister of Transportation, Oscar Puente, has been moping after Feijóo publishing in X precisely the video in which Trump recognizes that Spain “will only pay 2%.”
We can believe that “there are no exceptions”
Since Podemos, the MEP Irene Montero has also loaded against Sánchez that, as she has written in X, “has compromised 5% of GDP in military spending.” “There are no exceptions, Sánchez lied,” she said in the same line as the PP. “Yes there will be hard social cuts to pay those weapons and make the wars that Trump orders. It is a serious decision that puts Spain in danger. No to NATO. No to war,” he concludes.
The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, said, on the other hand, that “today is a tragic day for Spain and the working class.” “The consequences will be paid by us and our children during the next decades,” he said in statements to the press in Congress.
In his opinion, “the draft of betrayal of Sánchez's working class has not preceded since Sánchez accepted austerity policies a decade
“Not only is it that the president has committed immense increases in military spending for the next decades, it is also that he has committed us to the political and military objectives of a criminal, terrorist organization that is dedicated to extending war throughout the world such as NATO,” there is “there is no exception for Spain. The declaration compromises Spain. It is a commitment that this government and the following except that there is a brave president that there is He will have to fulfill in the coming decades, ”added Belarra.
