THE HAGUE — Canada used to be NATO’s biggest headache for its chronic defense underspending.
Now, at this year’s summit, everybody agrees: Spain’s the problem, with Slovakia coming a close second in stoking anger among alliance members.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s 11th-hour insistence that his country doesn’t need to hit NATO’s new 5 percent of GDP defense spending target, and managing to get a carve-out in an agreement on the spending goal, has turned Madrid into the alliance’s new pariah.
“I have no words to express my disgust,” one European defense official, who like others was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said on the sidelines of the summit.
Sanchez was followed by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico on Monday, who posted on X that his country “has other priorities in the coming years than armament,” and can get by without increasing spending.
At last year’s summit in Washington, frustration with Canadian defense spending was high, with Ottawa simply refusing to increase its defense budget to anywhere near NATO’s 2 percent of GDP guideline. The new government of Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged an extra $9 billion in defense expenditures, finally bringing the country to 2 percent and getting it out of the alliance’s doghouse.
A no-fuss summit
The last-minute refusals from Spain and Slovakia came at the start of a summit that NATO leadership has done its best to keep drama-free. It’s a reminder to the world that a 32-nation alliance can be unruly, especially when NATO business bumps up against domestic spending priorities.
They also come just hours before U.S. President Donald Trump is set to land in The Hague, ready to take a victory lap as allies fall in line with his handpicked target.
But no matter the domestic audiences that Sánchez and Fico are targeting with their decisions, they’re finding little sympathy among the alliance members gathered in The Hague.
Delegates ready for a quick and disciplined two-day event were aghast that the tightly choreographed display of unity might be blown up by a Spanish government, which has been a defense spending laggard, and a Slovak leader who has been critical of Europe’s support for Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
“Socialists,” a British lawmaker said of the Spanish. “Look at their position on Ukraine, hardly one of solidarity or standing behind our shared European security.”
A Spanish government spokesperson said Madrid would have to raise taxes and cut social programs to finance the defense spending increase, but added that the country does plan to meet NATO’s new capability targets.
Even as European officials conceded that Sánchez is in a tight spot at home, with his minority government unable to pass a budget with fresh cash for defense, they rejected the Spanish leader’s decision to ignore NATO’s new spending pledge due to be officially released on Wednesday.
Two European leaders said that all allies have approved NATO’s new capability targets that place demands to hit classified goals for troops and weapons each country has to provide. Sánchez has asserted that Spain can hit those targets while it sticks to its current plan to raise defense spending to 2.1 percent of GDP, but other allies don’t see how that’s possible.
“I can’t see anything that creates room for exceptions,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters on Tuesday.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the NATO Public Forum that it wasn’t “fair” for leaders whose country is further from Russia to seek exemptions. “It’s a question of being united, of defending Europe, not Poland or the Czech Republic. I disagree with the idea of an opt-out for a country,” she said, without specifically naming Spain
Poland, which this year aims to spend 4.7 percent of GDP on defense, the highest in NATO, also isn’t thrilled with Spain trying to get out of the alliance’s spending boost.
“We believe that any deviation from this principle by any member country is a bad example,” said Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz before flying to the summit.
He called Poland a “model member” of the alliance and warned against countries such as Spain trying to broaden NATO’s definition of defense spending to include things that are not strictly tied to the military.
Domestic troubles
But the political headwinds in Madrid are only getting worse. Some in Sánchez’s left-wing coalition are opposed to shifting cash from social welfare programs to the military. And the prime minister was further wounded after investigators said they had evidence showing that senior figures within his party have taken bribes for public works projects.
“It’s difficult to get 32 nations to do anything together, but the whole point of being an alliance is to be a good ally,” said one NATO diplomat. “Spain has always honored its commitments but we don’t understand why” Madrid can’t agree now and spend the next decade building a plan for getting there.
NATO veterans said Spain’s holdout was par for the course.
“Every year there’s at least one spoiler,” said Giuseppe Spatafora, a former NATO official who is now a research analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies in Brussels. “All countries accepted the target at first so as not to anger Trump, but they have to face their fiscal/domestic realities sooner or later.”
The last-minute Spanish drama has opened the door for others to copy Madrid and ask for their own carve-outs or at the very least more flexibility.
“If one country gets an exemption, this can become contagious,” said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, chair of the National Security and Defense Committee in Lithuania’s parliament and a former NATO official. “How can leaders defend the 5 percent after coming home if several countries got an exemption.”
Already, some NATO countries that have lagged behind the alliance’s defense spending targets are using Spain as political cover.
On Monday, Belgium announced that it would seek “maximum flexibility” from NATO on the 5 percent target. “We may not have done so by making a noisy statement like Spain, but I can assure you that for weeks our diplomats have been working hard to obtain the flexibility mechanisms,” Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot told local media.
Canada also has questions. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand told POLITICO that it’s an active discussion to determine when Canada must meet the alliance’s new 5 percent spending target.
“Will there be flexibility in, about 1.5 percent? Will there be a mandatory percentage increase at certain points in time? Will there be increases incrementally, and will there be a review after certain timelines, say, in 2029 — one of the dates that is being floated?” she asked.
While some were sympathetic to Sánchez’s political situation, others in the alliance said Spain and other laggards needed to step up — or face Trump’s wrath.
“It’s incredibly unfair to the alliance,” another NATO official said. “I’d like to see Fico tell Trump to his face about this at the dinner Tuesday night.”
Yet some European officials ultimately laid the blame for Spain’s last-minute curveball at Trump’s feet. The American president has publicly admitted that the U.S. doesn’t need to hit the stepped-up defense spending target he has demanded of NATO allies.
“Seems to be in good company with the U.S. not accepting the 5 percent target,” another European defense official said.
Aitor Hernández-Morales, Mike Blanchfield and Nicholas Vinocur contributed to this report.
This article has been updated with Canadian comment.
CORRECTION: This story has been amended to remove an incorrect reference to the Dutch capital.
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