About 3,000 protesters, according to official estimates, gathered on Saturday in the Spanish capital Madrid at a rally against re-arming Europe and increasing military spending to 5% of GDP, the EFE agency, taken over by Agerpres.
The protest took place under the slogans “No NATO!” And “not to the war budgets!”, The participants at the same time demanding the Spanish government led by the socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez to be firm in the refusal to allocate for military expenses useful funds for social purposes.
“Down the weapons, the pensions!”, “We do not want to pay your war with health and education”, “Israel Assassin, Sponsor Europe,” participants, with allusions not only in the war in Ukraine, but also at the Gaza Strip. The rally leaders of the Spanish left and activists for social rights also participated in the rally.
The reunion, “a brutal drift”
The financing of the reunion “will not be, without doubt, through reductions of social expenses”, stressed a protester, Javier Baeza, a priest of a church that helps vulnerable groups. “We must cry that we cannot accept this warrior path, as it will not lead anything good,” added the same protester.
From the united left formation, part of the summary (left coalition that governs Spain with the Socialist Party), the deputy Enrique Santiago said that for his party it will be “very difficult, if not impossible”, to remain in a government “entering this brutal derivative of the re-arming.”
For her part, MEP Irene Montero, who is also Secretary General of the Podemos left party, criticized the Spanish government because it has increased military expenses by about 10.5 billion euros, which, she says, is already translating into discounts of social expenses. “Today we know that after the budget engineering there are already billions of euros less for education,” noted Irene Montero.
The demonstration from Madrid took place before the NATO summit that will take place on June 24 and 25 in The Hague, where the Member States of the Alliance are expected to increase their commitments regarding the defense budgets.
Larger defense budgets in NATO countries
US President Donald Trump has asked NATO's European members to increase their defense budgets to 5% of GDP, well over the current 2% of GDP, which is not reached by nine of the 32 Member States of the Alliance.
The Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, who in January suggested to the alliance Member States to increase military expenses by diminishing those for pensions, health or social assistance, officially proposed that the leaders of these states be accepted to increase the defense budgets to 5% of the GDP, but marked in 3.5% of the PIB, in addition to the PIB, infrastructure.
He stated that, unlike the case of the agreement in 2014, when the allies set up to increase their defense budgets up to 2% of GDP in a 10-year-old horizon, the objective it pursues at this month's summit is for the Member States to engage in “annual plans indicating the growth (the budgets of the defense) for the end, for the end of the year, for the end of 5% plus 1.5%”.
The Secretary General of NATO claimed that it cannot be said that “there is no money” for arming and asked the leaders of the Member States to explain this to their own citizens. “That is why they are politicians, to present the facts of their peoples and tell them: we have rich societies, we can do it. But if we do not act now, in the next three years we will be fine, but (…) over three, four or five years, we will be threatened,” believes Mark Rutte.
