NATO - Could We Go With the Cheaper Version?

The story begins with the AP reporting that ‘Spain rejects NATO’s anticipated 5% defence spending proposal as unreasonable’. All for one and one for all. Indeed, Trump’s insistence on a major defence budget works well in Washington, since most of the arms come from American factories. However, the NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte seemed to have accepted over the weekend that Spain is different and agreed to a 2.1% limit for España.

How did Sánchez manage this?

Certainly, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Partido Popular, would like to know. Sánchez replies in a tweet – ‘Here you go, Alberto, get someone to translate the letter from Rutte into Spanish for you’. Good fun (Alberto is no linguist).

On Monday, the NATO secretary general Mark Rutte told Donald Trump that ‘all the NATO allies have agreed to spend 5%’.

El HuffPost however reported on Tuesday that ‘Belgium and Slovakia join Spain in defending their "sovereign right" to limit their defence spending before NATO. These NATO member countries reject increasing their contributions and demand "flexibility" at the summit being held in The Hague’.

The New York Times quotes the American president: “They’re having a problem with Spain,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday. “Always a problem with Spain. Spain’s not agreeing, which is very unfair to the rest of them”.

El Mundo says that ‘Allies revolt against Sánchez and his "bad example" in NATO: "Many countries are not happy with Spain". Spain's stance contrasts sharply with the commitment made by Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, which have announced their intention to embrace the 5% defence spending target’.

The left-wing Nueva Tribuna on the other hand thinks that Spain should leave the organisation entirely: ‘It's not national defence, it's business. If the United States wants to maintain NATO as an aggressive and feudalized organization to provide billions in revenue to its military industry, it is urgent that good and patriotic people, led by the Spanish military, urgently demand that NATO be abandoned’.

A graphic shows how much of their GDP each NATO country has been paying to date.

Trump says he will punish Spain with fresh tariffs. 'I'll have them paying double' he says. 

Feijóo would have caved in and gone with the 5%, says Sánchez. Feijóo on Thursday said that he would take Spain up to the 5% if he ever becomes president. 

The Final Word here: ‘Sánchez reaffirms that the 2.1% military spending limit is sufficient despite NATO's doubts: "It's not an arbitrary figure"’. 

The difference for Spain between 2% and 5% of GDP would amount to 43,800 million euros. That's a lot of un-built hospitals. 

Thinking about it later, Trump's blitz on the Nato allies earlier this week was like a thug barging into a shopping mall, saying to each outlet - pay up or else. When Spain said no, it got the heavy threats. It looked to me like a protection racket (I read a lot of crime novels). 

Et Tu Brute?

 Last week, the Government took an enormous hit after a senior party deputy was found to be partnered in with Jose Luis Ábalos and the fixer Koldo García in a corruption deal that swapped construction-contracts (mainly from the multinational Acciona) for cash.

The deputy in question was the right-hand of Pedro Sánchez, whose post was ‘Secretary of Organization of the PSOE’, a job he took over from his sacked predecessor, the above-mentioned José Luis Ábalos, back in 2021.

The moment the story broke, Pedro Sánchez did what he had to do by demanding the immediate resignation of Santos Cerdán from his post and from the PSOE. Sánchez himself emphasized this in his press conference by stating that, sad to say, there is no such thing as "zero corruption", in this world but at least in the PSOE there is "zero tolerance" for any serious evidence of corruption.

"…It causes me enormous indignation and profound sadness to see that an entire project that millions of people trust and depend on can be affected by the conduct of a few," he lamented. "The response to this kind of behaviour will always be forceful, regardless of the enormous disappointment I have experienced today".

Mind you, Rajoy was saying something similar when the corruption in his Partido Popular government first rose to the surface in 2014.

“There will be no elections before 2027” said Sánchez, whether as a promise or a prayer, as that confidence may be too hard to swallow. Will Koldo García – whose secret recordings, now in the hands of the UCO fraud police, where past deals and conversations are now being leaked to the media – produce any more bombshells?

The turnaround consisted of demanding Cerdán's resignation as secretary of the PSOE organization and his resignation as a member of Congress; announcing a restructuring of the Ferraz executive committee at the federal committee meeting to be held on July 5 in Seville; and commissioning an external audit to rule out any suspicion of irregular financing within the party. Whether that will be enough… and whether the secret recordings in the hands of the UCO will produce any further revelations.

A point worth making is that we all know that corruption – easy money – can and does appear in both socialist and conservative parties; but to my mind, a corrupt socialist is worse – he is stealing from the people, whereas corruption in conservative circles is somehow less of a surprise and almost part of the game and something to be expected.

The worry is that Spain could fall, via an autumn election, into the hands of a PP/Vox combination. If the Partido Popular could go it alone, then maybe Spain could continue to move forward, but with a far-right anti-EU party wagging the dog, such a prospect would be a disaster. Indeed, a snap poll carried out over the weekend unsurprisingly gives both the PP and Vox a push at the expense of the PSOE. Highly aware of this threat, the junior parties within the Government are wriggling on the hook. Not happy, but they know that they will have to keep in line.

The difference between the two main parties is in evidence. A socialist gets caught, he gets fired. Whereas on the other side… Ayuso in Madrid up to her neck in shady deals (the last PP leader, Pablo Casado, was thrown under the bus when he accused her of corruption). Valencia’s Carlos Mazón remaining as a willing millstone around Feijóo’s neck. Indeed Feijóo was in Valencia last week to congratulate Mazón over his administration of the DANA and to bless the budget agreement arranged together with Vox in their regional government. A slew of major corruption cases with the PP are tabled for next year. Feijóo would certainly like an election before the thirty or so cases are brought to trial.

The Government is now living day to day in a state of entrenchment in the face of the more than evident judicial and media campaign being carried against it.

Pedro Sánchez now says he will submit to questions in Congress on July 9th. But can he and his project last that long?

If things go wrong (perhaps following further unwelcome revelations from the police), like the Portuguese prime minister before him (later exonerated of any corruption), Sánchez will no doubt end up sooner or later with a senior role in Europe.