Spain moves away from anti-missile shield pushed by Germany, 14 other countries in NATO

To bolster Europe’s air defenses, Spain remains outside the anti-missile defense system Germany is pushing within NATO. German Defense Minister, Christine Lambertsigned an agreement with 14 other member states at the headquarters of the Atlantic Alliance in Brussels on Thursday, Launch of the European Shield Initiative. His Spanish counterparts, Margaret Oaksguaranteeing he has not received any requests to join from Berlin, although he does not rule out if he is invited to do so in the future.

During the NATO meeting, Robles announced to his peers, Spain to add at least four Eagle missile launchers to Ukraine Strengthen its air defense capabilities, as revealed by Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will not stop for a moment to help Ukraine And work as we have always been in close cooperation with all countries”, assured the Minister of Defense. Spain also offered to play an important role in the training mission of the Ukrainian army prepared by the EU.

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The European Sky Shield initiative aims to build a European air and missile defense system by European countries jointly purchase air defense equipment and missiles. It is backed by NATO, which believes it will help strengthen the alliance’s integrated air and anti-missile defenses.

all, The project includes half of NATO partners: Germany, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Finland.

German Chancellor Olaf Schotz proposes this new European anti-missile shield in speech on Europe’s future who gave this summer in Prague. “The air defense system jointly developed in Europe is not only More efficient and profitable than each of us building our own system Expensive and highly complex; it would also be a security gain for Europe as a whole and a good example of when we talk about strengthening the European pillar within NATO,” Scholz said.

Germany’s call to improve Europe’s air defenses comes at a time when Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has raised the level of the threat of war. As such, Scholz’s project was seen as a direct response to the war.

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Countries participating in the initiative intend to purchase three air defense systems: German IRIS-T, American Patriot and Israeli Arrow 3The German defense minister explained: “We must quickly close all gaps (in aviation security), we live in dangerous and threatening times.”

Why did Spain not participate in the development of the European anti-missile shield? The only reason given by Margarita Robles is that Germany did not ask for italthough the issue was resolved at a bilateral summit in Coruña last week.

” Chancellor Scholz said that this is an issue that Germany is assessing and is currently No proposal to Spain. And obviously, as President Sanchez said, when the proposal comes out, we’re going to look at it. Once a recommendation is made, we will definitely look into it. Because Spain’s will is to work on all projects that are carried out within NATO and that are within Spain’s competence,” Robles said.

“Nothing was asked of us.. . We handle all the requests that come to us, we obviously handle them, we study them to see if it’s possible,” the defense secretary insisted when asked about it.

In any case, the defense minister reiterated that “Spain’s commitment to NATO is complete and absolute”. “This commitment means that there are currently 1,300 men and women in the Spanish Armed Forces under the NATO flag, and they are located in the east flank, precisely to deter us in this situation,” he stressed. Spain sends arms and humanitarian supplies to Ukrainetreats the wounded on our territory and is already training Ukrainian soldiers, he added.

Russian-Ukrainian War

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