Albares defends in the US the « effort » of Spain for reaching 2% military spending | Spain

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, has highlighted before the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, “The Huge Effort” of Spain to achieve the objective of 2% of the Military Expenditure GDP, when the Donald Trump administration requires that NATO member countries allocate at least 5% of their budget to defense. As stated by the head of Spanish diplomacy at a meeting in Washington with his US counterpart, the debate within the alliance must « focus on capabilities. »

A month from the NATO annual summit that will be held in The Hague (Holland), Albares has also underlined “the effort” of Spain “with the security of the East Flank, with a deployment that is the largest in its history with 2,300 soldiers that are currently guaranteeing the safety of all Europeans”, as stated in a press conference at the Spanish embassy after the meeting.

Thursday’s appointment between Albares and Rubio in the State Department, the first bilateral of both since the beginning of the Donald Trump administration four months ago, has been developed in a “cordial” tone, as Spanish has described. Both have addressed not only the question of NATO, but also the need for a fair and lasting peace in Ukraine, and the situation in Gaza, that the minister has described as « beyond the inhuman. »

About US demands that NATO members dedicate 5% of their GDP to military spending, Albares has recognized that « there has been an exchange » and the two exterior representatives have expressed their respective views with « much clarity ». « I have insisted that it has been an enormous effort to achieve that 2% and that the debate at the moment has to focus on capabilities, » he added. The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, had already declared Tuesday in Brussels that she considered an « error » set percentages before talking about the necessary capacities to guarantee European security.

Around Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Albares stressed that in the situation in the strip « we are beyond the unbearable and the inhuman », and « we all have to do something to stop this war. » The appointment was developed in a day in which the US capital was shaken by shots murder last night of a couple of officials of the Israeli embassy at the exit of an act in the Jewish Museum of the capital. Albares has expressed to Rubio his sharp condemnation of the attack.

« 60,000 dead Palestinians are more than enough and we have to do everything in our hands to break the blockade, so that humanitarian aid reaches the Gazatí population and also so that access to that humanitarian aid is made by the United Nations neutrally, it cannot be Israel who decides who receives who receives food, when he receives them and how, » said the minister, who remembered that on Sunday the Ministry of Foreign of Madrid, also known as the Arab-Islamic contact group, which welcomes ministers of European and Muslim countries, to increase diplomatic pressure on Israel and stop its new offensive.

The question of the tariffs that the United States wants to impose on the rest of the countries was another of the issues addressed in the meeting with Rubio, Albares explained. « What I have moved is that we considered that the commercial relationship between the United States and Europe was mutually beneficial and had guaranteed decades of prosperity and that what we wanted is that it followed that and if there was any difference of course could be resolved through dialogue and negotiation. »