Spain rejects NATO’s anticipated 5% defence spending proposal as ‘unreasonable’

Madrid: Spain has rejected a NATO proposal to spend 5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence needs that’s due to be announced next week, calling it “unreasonable.”

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in a letter sent on Thursday to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, said that Spain “cannot commit to a specific spending target in terms of GDP” at next week’s NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands.

Any agreement to adopt a new spending guideline must be made with the consensus of all 32 NATO member states. So Sánchez’s decision risks derailing next week’s summit, which US President Donald Trump is due to attend, and creating a last-minute shakeup that could have lingering repercussions.

Most US allies in NATO are on track to endorse Trump’s demand that they invest 5 per cent of GDP on their defence and military needs. In early June, Sweden and the Netherlands said that they aim to meet the new target. A NATO official on Thursday said that discussions between allies were ongoing about a new defence spending plan.

“For Spain, committing to a 5 per cent target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive, as it would move Spain away from optimal spending and it would hinder the EU’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its security and defence ecosystem,” Sánchez wrote in the letter seen by The Associated Press. Spain was the lowest spender in the trans-Atlantic alliance last year, directing less than 2 per cent of its GDP on defence expenditure.

Sánchez said in April that the government would raise defence spending by 10.5 billion euros (USD 12 billion) in 2025 to reach NATO’s previous target of 2 per cent of GDP.

On Thursday, Sánchez called for “a more flexible formula” in relation to a new spending target — one that either made it optional or left Spain out of its application.

Sánchez wrote that the country is “fully committed to NATO,” but that meeting a 5 per cent target “would be incompatible with our welfare state and our world vision.” He said that doing so would require cutting public services and scaling back other spending, including toward the green transition. Instead, Spain will need to spend 2.1 per cent of GDP to meet the Spanish military’s estimated defence needs, Sánchez said.

At home, corruption scandals that have ensnared Sánchez’s inner circle and family members have put the Spanish leader under increasing pressure to call an early election, even from some allies.

Increased military spending is also unpopular among some of Sanchez’s coalition

partners.