The pulse that the increase in defense spending has caused within the coalition government already has a new division. The Minister of Universities, Joan Subirats, has become the prime minister of Podemos who has justified the presumable budget item due to the increase in risks.
It was yesterday when the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, promised yesterday before NATO and the European Union to increase Spain’s defense spending, in line with one of the summit agreements to increase common economic resources, an essential condition for strengthen the military and deterrent capabilities of the Alliance in the face of the Russian threat on the eastern slope and on the southern flank, during the next ten years.
The measure, together with the expansion of the Rota base so that the US fleet can transfer two new destroyers, is not to the liking of United We Can. The Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón, even advanced yesterday the foreseeable contrary vote of the Podemos ministers.
Garzón’s warning, which literally said that the purple ministers “will also vote against”, advances what clearly seems to be the most significant gap within the Executive of Pedro Sánchez and anticipates the next debate that will open with the negotiation of next year’s budgets in which the President of the Government expects to see an increase in State spending on defense.
Subirats, however, has highlighted the weakness of the front announced by Garzón as long as the increase does not lead to “an arms race logic.”
In an interview on the ‘Café d’Idees’ program on RNE-Ràdio 4 and La2, Subirats justified increasing defense spending and, although he said he does not know if it should be 2% of GDP, he is the Prime Minister of United We Can not criticize increasing military spending now.
Subirats considers that “assuming the costs of what a defense policy implies if the risks and threats increase seems justified, what I don’t know is whether it should be exactly 2% or not”.
The minister pointed out that the increase in defense spending “obviously does not mean that we have to follow a logic of an arms race, since there is little that can be left implicitly”.
With his melon open, Sánchez referred the United States ministers We can answer the question of whether they can continue in the Executive if they vote against issues related to defense such as the increase in the number of US destroyers in Rota (Cádiz).
