Robles made this announcement after the EU Defense Council held this Monday in Brussels, in which the ministers of the sector discussed how to accelerate European military independence by 2030 and how to intensify support for Ukraine so that it can resist Russia’s war of aggression.
“There is a capability that matters a lot to us: everything related to the maritime domain. In the maritime domain we want to co-lead with other countriesbecause we understand that Europe has to have a very special role in everything that refers to dominance in the area of the seas, which is perhaps one of the matters that has been most neglected,” the Minister of Defense argued.
Coinciding with the meeting in Brussels, the Commission Ursula von der Leyen confirmed this Monday that it has received the national defense investment plans of the 19 countries that requested credits from the SAFE program, whose total allocation of 150,000 million euros has been exhausted.
Spain has been one of the Member States that has requested the least SAFE funds: barely 1,000 million euros, despite its difficulties in increasing Defense spending.
Robles has confirmed that, of this amount, 215 million will be dedicated to military aid to Ukraine, as the President of the Government had announced, Pedro Sanchezduring the last visit of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
A total of 100 of these 215 million euros will be channeled through the NATO PURL programwhich allows European allies to acquire weapons in the US and send them free of charge to kyiv, since Trump has interrupted military aid to the Government of Volodymyr Zelensky since he came to power.
In addition to aid to Ukraine, Spain will ally with Portugal and Latvia to make joint purchases of Vamtac and Ascod armored vehiclesrespectively.
The rest of the European funds will be spent on military initiatives related to radars and cybersecurityas explained by Robles.
“As always, our commitment to Ukraine is a total commitment and an absolute commitment,” stressed the Minister of Defense, who has been very pessimistic about the peace negotiations led by Trump.
Robles has pointed out that the talks “are in a very incipient phase” and that the US has not yet given Ukraine “any security guarantee”, which is in a “difficult panorama.”
“Today, the talks are not in such a state as to be able to say that there are guarantees for Ukraine to reach an agreement. Precisely for this reason, given this situation that I would dare to say, if not pessimistic, in a stand-bythat is why we have reinforced that commitment and support for Ukraine,” he concluded.
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