Spain claims exemption after Nato agrees 5% spending deal

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Nato on Sunday signed off on a pledge to ramp up defence spending for its summit next week, but Spanish premier Pedro Sanchez insisted Madrid would not need to hit the headline figure of five percent of GDP.

US President Donald Trump has been pressuring allies to commit to that target when they meet for the two-day starting on Tuesday in The Hague. Spain had been the last holdout on a compromise deal that sees allies promise to reach 3.5 percent on core military needs over the next decade, and spend 1.5 percent on a looser category of “defence-related” expenditures such as infrastructure and cybersecurity.

Multiple diplomats at Nato said the agreement had gone through with the approval of all 32 nations and that there was no exemption for Madrid. But within minutes Sanchez came out saying he had struck an accord with Nato that would see his country keep respecting its commitments “without having to raise our defence spending to five percent of gross domestic product”. The claim from Madrid came after Sanchez on Thursday threw a last-minute grenade into preparations for the gathering in the Netherlands by taking a strong stand against the agreement.

In a blistering letter to Nato chief Mark Rutte, Sanchez said that committing to a headline figure of five percent of GDP “would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive”. The outburst from Madrid´s centre-left leader sparked fury from other Nato members who feared it could derail the carefully crafted compromise.