Spain rejects proposed defence spending hike ahead of NATO summit

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote in a letter that “committing to a five per cent target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive."

The success of a key NATO summit hung in the balance on Friday, after Spain announced that it cannot raise the billions of dollars needed to meet a new defence investment pledge demanded by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump and his NATO counterparts are meeting for two days in the Netherlands from next Tuesday. He insists that U.S. allies should commit to spending at least five per cent of gross domestic product, but that requires investment at an unprecedented scale.

Trump has cast doubt over whether the U.S. would defend allies that spend too little.

Setting the spending goal would be a historic decision. It would see all 32 countries invest the same amount in defence for the first time. Only last week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte expressed confidence that they would endorse it.

But in a letter to Rutte on Thursday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote that “committing to a five per cent target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive.”

“It would move Spain away from optimal spending and it would hinder the (European Union’s) ongoing efforts to strengthen its security and defense ecosystem,” Sánchez wrote in the letter, seen by The Associated Press.

Belgium, Canada, France and Italy would also struggle to hike security spending by billions of dollars, but Spain is the only country to officially announce its intentions, making it hard to row back from such a public decision.

Beyond his economic challenges, Sánchez has other problems. He relies on small parties to govern, and corruption scandals have ensnared his inner circle and family members. He’s under growing pressure to call an early election.