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.
The following infographic is based on the report number 55 of the Delàs Peace Research Center of Catalonia, published in October 2022. In the report, Xavier Bohigas, Pere Brunet, Teresa de Fortuny, Anna Montull García and Pere Ortega analysed in depth the links between... [+]
When I was a kid, it was customary at home to park what we were doing at eight o'clock in the afternoon, assemble the TV and watch the ETB1 news. At first, I was very irritated by those unjust changes in the night chain, and I was asking my parents how it was possible that, being... [+]
In the fall of 1415 the battle of Agrincourt erupted between England and France, one of the most decisive wars of the Hundred Years War. To this end, when Henry V, king of England and lord of Ireland, decided to send his army to France that summer, the soldiers landed on the... [+]
In the 1980s, the young Basques sang “si vis pacem, para bellum”. If you want peace, get ready for war, we screamed in Latin, without understanding very well the meaning of the phrase.
At that time, the Basque conflict was in the vortex and the world lived in the last years... [+]
Genocide is unfortunately a fashionable word. According to Rafael Lemkin’s definition in 1946, genocide is defined as “actions aimed at the total or partial destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” These actions may include “killing the members of... [+]
Drone production is an emerging industry and Turkey has become one of the largest manufacturers and exporters of war drones. Your star product is Bayraktar TB2. A drone that can take off, land and navigate autonomously, but that depends on a human operator to launch laser-guided... [+]
An hour after the famous city of Las Vegas, in the middle of the desert is the Creech military airbase. In the 1950s, during the Cold War, it became famous for being the place of nearly 1,000 "experimental" nuclear explosions. In Creech, most of the U.S. drone strikes around the... [+]
In the 1950s, the U.S. military began using drones for custody and recognition missions in conflict zones. On 3 July 1994, the first flight of the unarmed Predator drone took place. In July 1995, Predator flew above the Balkans in surveillance missions. It should be noted that,... [+]
I don't know what atmosphere there is in the south of the Bidasoa, but at least in the north is the word "war." In the orders of December 31, 2023, President Macron could seven times correct the word "rearmament." They say that we need to channel the ‘war economy’, and that is... [+]