Discomfort in the Spanish government over the organization of a NATO meeting with representatives of the defense sector. The absence of Spanish companies among those invited to participate tomorrow in Brussels in an informal meeting with the ministers of the 31 allied countries has greatly annoyed the Spanish delegation, allied sources have reported. Given the lack of solutions on the part of the Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, who tomorrow will participate in a regular ministerial meeting of those responsible for Defense and various meetings related to the war in Ukraine, will be absent when he arrives. to that point on the agenda, early in the afternoon.
Asked about it, Stoltenberg has played down the importance of the matter and has pointed out that NATO has other types of forums to have regular contacts with representatives of the transatlantic defense industry and this is only what is expected to be the first of a series of meetings. with the sector. “It is a relatively small group of companies and there are several allies that are not represented”, said the general secretary. “These acts are like that, small, because we want them to be, with small and large companies” but “this is not the only way we have to relate to the defense industry, we have several platforms to do it”.
One of the complaints of the Spanish delegation in NATO refers to the lack of transparency regarding the selection process and the criteria followed to determine the list of invited companies, and this was stated last week to Stoltenberg’s team in Brussels. It is not considered an “irreversible” problem, but it is “serious”, according to allied sources, taking into account that Spain is the ninth country in absolute defense spending, the seventh net contributor in absolute terms to the allied budget or the fifth in contributions to missions With the absence of Robles at the meeting, the Government wants to “make clear” its dissatisfaction with the situation.
The Atlantic Alliance will host a meeting of the contact group for Ukraine in the Ramstein format tomorrow morning, from which announcements of new contributions of military material are expected to come, as well as a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine commission, the second in just a couple of months, a cooperation format that is expected to be raised to the Council level to make decisions on an equal footing. In the afternoon, the meeting with representatives of the European and North American military industry will take place, after which the first working session of the meeting of defense ministers of the 31 allied countries will be held. The meeting, in which different plans and decisions will be prepared for the Vilnius summit in July, the ministers will discuss a plan to encourage joint purchases of military equipment -paradoxically, in the image of what the Union has begun to do Union – and the updating of the regional defense plans.
