Spain’s top diplomat dismissed a suggestion that the nation’s failure to commit to a revised NATO spending target was the reason for its absence from this week’s talks to discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“Spain is a very committed ally,” Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
He said he’d received no indication that failure to commit to the NATO goal was in any way linked to Spain’s omission from Monday’s meeting in Washington between European leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and US President Donald Trump.
The gathering was seen as a win for western allies attempting to steer Trump away from a quick deal at Ukraine’s expense — something that appeared more likely after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week.
US and European officials will immediately work on providing Ukraine with robust security guarantees to help bolster the country’s armed forces, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg Tuesday.
The aim is to prevent Russia demanding restrictions on the size of Kyiv’s military as part of a future agreement to end the war, the people said.
In his Bloomberg TV interview, Albares said reinforcing Ukraine’s army is the best security guarantee available given “the reality on the ground.”
“That’s what we are doing: providing military equipment to make sure that the Ukrainian army is capable of guaranteeing sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he added.
“We need a ceasefire first of all,” he said, at the same time cautioning that “Russia has given no sign of being in good faith engaged in real conversation for a just and lasting peace.”
In June, Spain raised hackles among some NATO allies by seeking an exemption from the military alliance’s new target of committing 5% of gross domestic product to defense. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government argued that its spending plans are sufficient to meet NATO needs.
Trump subsequently threatened Spain with tariffs twice as high as the rest of the European Union, but hasn’t followed through.
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Spain, NATO spending target, Ukraine, military equipment, territorial integrity
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