NATO closes the door on Sánchez's formula to reach 2% military spending by summer.

BrusselsPedro Sánchez thought he had already found the solution to please NATO allies and, at the same time, its government partners and parliamentarians: Increase defense spending without allocating more money. How? By changing the way military spending is calculated. However, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has ruled out this option for the time being and responds to Spain that there are no shortcuts to reaching the minimum rate of spending 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. "We have a clear description of what military spending is, and what we don't want is to dilute it," the Dutch leader stated emphatically upon entering the NATO Foreign Ministerial this Thursday and Friday in Brussels.

In this way, Rutte closes the door for the time being to the Spanish government's intention to include the fight against terrorism, cybersecurity, and border control as military spending. According to NATO diplomatic sources, if the allies were to accept this change in the calculations, Spain could allocate 2% of GDP to defense this summer. Furthermore, would no longer be at the bottom of the Atlantic Alliance's military spending rankings. because it is one of the states that spends the most on the three new concepts that they want to be counted as money spent on defense.

In fact, the Spanish government not only wants to convince NATO in this regard, but is exerting similar pressure at the level of the European Union. For days, the Moncloa has been struggling in the European institutions because in the great rearmament plan promoted by the European Commission of Ursula von der Leyen, which aims to mobilize about 800 billion euros in four years, include financing of the fight against terrorism, border control and the prevention of cyberattacks as key elements of community blog security.

Until Rutte's words, no NATO ally or Brussels had closed the door in this way to Sánchez's formula to reach 2% of GDP in military spending by the summer of this year, despite the fact that some countries—especially those bordering the largest number of countries—have decided to invest in gas or acquire tanks. Spain always argues that the most direct threat it faces is not only the expansionism of Vladimir Putin's regime, but also hybrid and terrorist attacks and the control of migratory routes that reach the southern border through the Mediterranean.

In this sense, the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, insisted this Thursday at the start of the NATO ministerial summit that Europe faces several threats and stressed that one of them is terrorism. However, he has avoided being as optimistic as the Spanish government's defense minister, Margarita Robles, who stated this Tuesday that Spain would reach the desired 2% "much sooner" than the target it had initially set, which was 2029.

NATO already assumes that at the June summit in The Hague it will approve raising the mandatory minimum rate to 3% or 3.5%. In fact, in the same vein as Donald Trump had already indicated during the election campaign, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted this Thursday from Brussels that European partners should reach 5%. Thus, although Sánchez plans to present a plan to accelerate the pace of military spending increases between the end of April and the beginning of June, Spain will continue to remain far from the minimums established by NATO.