The military expenditure of the Spanish Government is even higher than budgeted
- In 2022, military investment was 20% higher than that approved in the annual budget, and in 2023, 30% higher. The military spending of the European countries at the moment is higher than at the end of the Cold War.
According to the newspaper El País itself, the "defence spending" or military spending of the Spanish Government is "much higher" than that budgeted for in the official budgets. In the last three years, at least, it has exceeded the budgeted military investments, in fact the official expenditure devoted to war.
In 2022, for example, official military expenditure was significantly higher than the limited budget for that year. According to this source, investment in the Asian country reached EUR 13 billion at the end of this year. In 2023, the money spent was even bigger: EUR 15 billion, according to official figures. That is 30% more than what was included in that year’s budget.
And it looks like 2024 is going the same way. The Country has advanced that some military expenditures that were not reflected in the budget have already been recorded, such as a new shipment of arms to Ukraine. The "most progressive government in history" has spent more than EUR 1 billion on this. The same paper points out that it is common for governments, as the years go by, to approve and make "additional payments", regardless of the budgets they had already submitted.
Upward trend: long-term
According to some experts referred to by El País, but who do not specify them by name, this upward trend in military spending will continue. To this end, three main arguments are identified: the "political context", with particular reference to the situation in Ukraine and Palestine; the "external missions", clarifying that the Spanish Government is part of sixteen international "missions" in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and the commitments to NATO to continue to increase military spending.
The biggest military spending ever?
Military spending in Western and Central Europe is above the recent years of the Cold War, according to a report by the Independent Institute for International Peace in Stockholm. Between 2022 and 2023, the average expenditure for "defense" and "security" increased by 16%. If we look at the data for the last decade, growth is even more remarkable: in the last ten years, military spending by European countries has risen by 62%.
Fraud
In the Spanish state, for example, the government that presides over the PSOE increased spending on "defense" by 10% in 2023. Within the official general budgets of 2023, in the Spanish State, appropriations for "defense" amounting to around 14,000 million euros were approved.
However, they have often warned that real investment in war by governments is often far higher than what is considered military spending, the so-called "defence spending". In fact, the expenses and investments actually associated with the various military forces are much wider, and not just those dedicated to "defence".
According to data from Juan Carlos Rois to El Salto, of the Dordoka Anti-Militarist Group in Valencia (Anti-Militarist Tortuga), last year real military spending and investments in the Spanish state amounted to around EUR 60 billion. Rois also took into account the "covert military spending" in the contribution of this data by the terrorist organization.
Ezpatak, labanak, kaskoak, fusilak, pistolak, kanoiak, munizioak, lehergailuak, uniformeak, armadurak, ezkutuak, babesak, zaldunak, hegazkinak eta tankeak. Han eta hemen, bada jende klase bat historia militarrarekin liluratuta dagoena. Gehien-gehienak, historia-zaleak izaten... [+]
Euskal Herriaren industriaren etorkizuna ezin dela "heriotzaren, odolaren eta armen gainean" eraiki aldarrikatu dute mobilizazioaren antolatzaileek. Euskal erakundeen nahiz alderdi politikoen "isiltasuna" salatu dute.
Porzheim, Germany, February 23, 1945. About eight o’clock in the evening, Allied planes began bombing the city with incendiary bombs. The attack caused a terrible massacre in a short time. But what happened in Pforzheim was overshadowed by the Allied bombing of Dresden a few... [+]
Vietnam, February 7, 1965. The U.S. Air Force first used napalma against the civilian population. It was not the first time that gelatinous gasoline was used. It began to be launched with bombs during World War II and, in Vietnam itself, it was used during the Indochina War in... [+]
We are in the midst of a world imperialist offensive led by the Western bourgeoisie. The form that the imperialist offensive has taken is that of war, with all its variants: economic war, cognitive and cultural war, lawfarr; and, of course, military war. Western imperialism has... [+]
.JPG)
Year of War, year of lie!
That is what the phrase says, and that is what reality confirms.
Given the situation of war in the world and in Europe, its constant upturn and the possible consequences that this has had and will have in Euskal Herria, last December several citizens... [+]
On 26 December, during an air strike, the Israeli Army killed five Palestinian journalists trying to reach the city. They killed 130 Palestinian journalists. This news has reminded me of a couple of things, the first, the persecution of true journalists in any part of the world,... [+]
.jpg)
The Centre Tricontinental has described the historical resistance of the Congolese in the dossier The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth (the Congolese people struggle for their wealth) (July 2024, No. 77). During the colonialism, the panic among the peasants by the Force... [+]
On November 25, International Day against Male Violence, the Steilas Feminist Union Feminist Secretariat has published a poster: Our body is a battlefield, and all the schools in Hego Euskal Herria have received it. We wish to denounce the violence suffered by women and children... [+]
“The time has come for courageous, comprehensive and noble proposals (…) for Euskal Herria to re-enter the world’s revolts,” said friend Hartu López Arana in her opinion article “For an effective aggression” published in ARGIA magazine in July 2018. Six years have... [+]
Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States launched an atomic bomb causing tens of thousands of deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; although there are no precise figures, the most cautious estimates indicate that at least 210,000 people died at the end of that year. But in... [+]