Sanchez faces without partners or opposition the road map that NATO demands from Spain | Spain

Pedro Sánchez has executed one of the most sensitive decisions of the legislature, the increase in defense expenditure by 10,471 million more euros in 2025 so that, according to government forecasts, Spain can Fulfill this year with the spending of 2% of GDP committed to NATO Without achieving, for the moment, consensus on this operation. The Council of Ministers approved on Tuesday the Industrial and Technological Plan for Security and Defense – this Wednesday will be sent to Brussels to evaluate the EU and NATO – with the rejection of the rise by adding and of the parties to the left of the PSOE (the minority partner of the coalition called in public of “exorbitant” and “incoherent”) and the criticism of the PP for the intention of the executive The voting increase in Congress on the argument that only items are being reassed. The lack of new budgets complicates the consolidation of some items for defense, admit sources from the Executive, which do not rule out the possibility of having to go to Congress to request a new loan.

Despite the observations of adding to the plan and internal criticism, the socialists minimize the impact of this discrepancy and deny that it causes great turbulence in the coalition. The second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, declined to intervene in the Council of Ministers and delegated that responsibility to Ernest Urtasun, Minister of Culture and spokesman to add. According to government sources, the Executive has already raised the possibility of taking the Package in Defense in whose design the ministries of the Presidency, Finance, Industry, Defense and Digital Transformation. The operation has been managed with caution, without carrying the Plan the General Commission of Secretaries and Subsecretaries of State, the body in which the affairs of the Council of Ministers are previously analyzed, or to the Government Delegate Commission for Economic Affairs. In the government they underline that Díaz was informed with « enough in advance. » « This industrial plan is not the result of improvisation and it will be a very good program for our armed forces, for the security of Spain and for our industry with the creation of jobs. It will demonstrate that Spain is a serious, committed and reliable country, » claimed the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, after the control session in the Senate.

Minister Robles made an initial exhibition at the Council of Ministers before the president’s central intervention. « We have made observations, it is not the first time, we have our healthy and very transparent discrepancies, we are in the only progressive coalition government that exists throughout Europe and we will continue to push because the measures go beyond what has been said of a military rearme, » the Minister of Health, Mónica García, leader of Mas Madrid, one of the forces that encompassed the forces that encompassed the forces of the forces. « We have coincidence in 99% of the actions and initiatives, but in some policies, in this concrete, there are some nuances that they have expressed without more concern, » said the First Vice President and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero

In the PSOE they attribute the reproaches of adding to the need not to give space to Podemos, which deployed all its spokesmen to load against the government initiative. His general secretary, Ione Belarra, said that « any war government » will « face. » Adding, on the other hand, made a breast of having managed to have « any social cuts, that 80% are intended for salary improvements for professionals, cybersecurity and improvements in natural emergency management. » A vision that contrasts with the critical position without nuances manifested by Antonio Maíllo, Federal Coordinator of the United Left, an organization historically contrary to NATO and very belligerent with the increase in military investment. « From IU we show our most absolute rejection of the decision -making of the Council of Ministers. We oppose not only because it is a unilateral decision of the PSOE and President Pedro Sánchez, but because it has not previously been deliberate, nor debated, nor is it in the investiture agreement, nor responds to the spirit with which the Government became 2023, » was much more critical.

The Congress, for now, will not pronounce on defense spending but Sanchez will appear again in May to explain the plan. For now, this Tuesday, Gabriel Rufián, ERC spokesman in the lower house, criticized the president for being « capable of establishing three days of mourning in a decon -spare state for the death of a pacifist pope and during those three days to announce 10,000 million euros more in arms. » Néstor Rego, of the BNG, reproached the president to give « a sweet version of what is truly being done, insisting a lot on the aspect of safety and double -use technologies. »

Sánchez’s decision not to take the defense plan gives oxygen to the PP, because it delves it from the awkward position to pronounce on a matter of state that shares in the background with the PSOE. The Spanish popular have committed themselves to their European PP partners to an increase in the major defense expenditure still announced by Sánchez, 3% of GDP. Even so, Feijóo has a lot of pressure from the toughest sectors on the right, which urge him to avoid any approach to Sánchez, especially significantly in defense.

After the president’s explanations, the PP came to denounce on Tuesday the « authoritarian tics » of Sánchez for not submitting the Defense Plan to the Congress. The number two of Alberto Núñez Feijóo urged Sánchez to take to vote in Parliament each measure of a plan “that makes water everywhere”, since it develops and immediately present the general budgets, including there the increase in defense. « It is not serious or democratic, » complained the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, in a video recorded by the party and sent to the media. « The Government, with the Constitution in hand, exercises its powers as an executive. It is not that Congress will not have that information, what is not necessary is to vote in Congress. If something had to be voted, something would be generation of credits, which is not the case, » Montero replied.

Feijóo, who met in the morning in Genoa behind closed doors with ambassadors and diplomats from allied and NATO countries, expressed himself about the president’s announcement through a tweet: “Without the agreement of his Council of Ministers. Without budgets. Without authorization from Congress. Without giving details where he will take thousands of euros. Spain needs a true defense plan and Sánchez has presented one of self -defense,” he wrote. Despite his important reservations on the way in which the plan will be approved, Feijóo expressed before the ambassadors and diplomats with which he was seen at the headquarters of the PP to invest 2% in defense « It is a necessary condition » and « an obligation as an ally », according to a statement sent by the party.

The Council of Ministers approved on Tuesday the plan that Sanchez announced in March at Congress. Approved it after, at the meeting of the Federal Executive of the PSOE, Sanchez made pedagogy before the dome of the party. According to sources present at the meeting, he said that Italy, governed by the ultra -rightist Giorgia Meloni and among NATO lags such as Spain, was going to reach 2% of military spending this year. The PSOE leader did not talk about concrete deadlines or advanced his plans to the socialist dome but slipped that his intention was to follow the wake of the rest of the community countries with a greater budget in defense.

Italy’s decision, together with that of Belgium, left Sánchez in an even more difficult position, which will now face the June NATO Summit in The Hague, as several ministers coincide. The Government launches the plan a week after the meeting in which the US Secretary of Treasury, Scott Besent, claimed the Minister of Economy, Carlos Corpora, that Spain increased military spending, which in 2024 represented 1.4% of GDP. The more than 10,000 million necessary to reach 2% will leave the reorientation of the European funds, remnants and items of the extended budgets of 2023. Another of the questions is whether the Government will be able to execute the expense approved before December 31. « I fully trust that the machinery, which is very greased, of the general administration and the defense in particular will allow the execution of until the last euro, » Montero observed.