The defense spending projected each year in the general state budgets is insufficient. Over the past two years, this item has required an additional injection to finance existing commitments and those added during these years. The gap between the forecast and the actual execution exceeds 20% compared to 2022. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the commitment of NATO countries to increase military spending to 2% of GDP in 2030 have exacerbated the situation. This is despite the fact that the Court of Auditors has already warned against this practice and the Constitutional Court has in the past canceled budget appropriations because they had been approved by decree to circumvent parliamentary control. One of the most recent examples of defense spending not provided for in the budgets is the announcement of the shipment of weapons to kyiv worth more than 1 billion euros, which will increase further in 2024. This trend will continue in the future, analysts say. consulted, both because of the tense geopolitical context (conflict in Ukraine, war between Israel and Hamas, etc.) and because of the commitment made with NATO so that defense spending reaches 2% of GDP before the end of this decade.
“Governments prefer to reduce defence spending to the minimum possible when drawing up budgets, whatever their nature. They know that there are historical oppositions to this chapter and that there are reasons for budgetary stability,” he says. Felix Arteagasenior researcher in security and defense at the Royal Elcano Institute. “It's a classic. The gaps usually exceed 30% in the worst cases,” corroborates Antonio FonfriaProfessor of Economics at the Complutense University of Madrid and academic at the Academy of Military Sciences and Arts.
The gap between planned expenditure and actual expenditure is not only a reflection of unforeseen events that may occur. The insufficiency of the military budget is a modus operandi of all leaders to overcome internal pressures, avoid public opinion and devote more resources, at least on paper, to other issues. In recent times, for example, tensions have arisen between government partners when a strong increase in the amount allocated to Defense in last year's accounts, by more than 26%.
The data confirm this gap that is generated year after year. The item assigned to the Ministry of Defense in the 2022 accounts amounted to 10.155 million euros, but ultimately the budget execution was almost 30% higher, exceeding 13.000 million, according to the settlement data published by the Treasury. For last year, the Executive estimated military spending at 12.825 million. Finally, the disbursements observed amounted to around 15 billion, approximately 20% more than initially expected.
Some studies calculate a larger gap than that resulting from the deviation from the initial budget, taking into account all the chapters that increase military spending outside the ministry's bills. Delàs Center for Peace StudiesFor example, it is estimated that last year spending on Defense exceeded 27 billion euros, and that in 2022 it will exceed 22 billion compared to the 10.155 million allocated by the accounts.
Credit extensions
This year there are no new budgets — those for 2023 have been extended — but everything indicates that the size of the gap between estimated military spending and actual military spending will remain stable, or even increase. Indeed, the Executive has already approved two credit increases in the first half of the year: the sending of weapons to Ukraine, and an additional 580 million for “peacekeeping operations” abroad, charged to the Contingency Fund.
“As what is initially presented is not sufficient to cover all expenses, extraordinary credits are used in the Contingency Fund. [una partida presupuestaria creada para atender las emergencias] or credits from the Ministry of Industry,” Arteaga summarizes. Some of these practices were sanctioned in 2016 by the Constitutional Court, which annulled extraordinary credits worth billions, considering that they should have been approved by law and not by decree-law, because they thus circumvented parliamentary control.
JAVIER BELVER (EFE)
He thus responded to an appeal of unconstitutionality presented by the PSOE and other parties against a credit for special arms programs. The Court of Auditors also urged to modify these procedures. “This misuse of the budgetary technique has been questioned, but this situation has not been corrected: we continue to use more money than we had budgeted,” adds the expert from Elcano.
Military missions abroad are particularly costly and are one of the main reasons for budget gaps that occur throughout the year, along with arms purchases, explains Father Ortegafounder and honorary president of the Delàs Center. Currently, there are 16 missions abroad, between the hot fronts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and Africa (Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others). “They are very expensive, not only in terms of salaries, but also because of the transport of heavy weapons and supplies. But every year, an amount much lower than what was actually spent is budgeted, which leads to a little cheating.”
Ortega insists that there is “much more military spending than what is strictly the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense”, which is distributed among different departments and that, if they were counted where they correspond, they would offer another picture of Spain's real effort in this chapter. “For example, military pensions from Social Security or aid to military industries to produce weapons, which come from the Ministry of Industry. These are expenses that the government does not consider. If that were the case, we would already reach 2% of GDP in defense spending,” he emphasizes.
“Additional appropriations mainly related to the Contingency Fund and the appropriation included in the Ministry of Industry's 464B program related to military R&D have been added to the allocation provided for in the corresponding budget laws. (…) The variations represent up to a third of the initial budget,” the report states. The increase in the defense budget in Spain, published at the end of last year by the Alternatives Foundation.
A situation, add the authors of this latest document, which is “not very appropriate”. For two reasons: on the one hand, “the responsibility for the industrial and technological policy of the defense sector falls to the Ministry of Defense”, and not to Industry; on the other hand, because the operations that will be carried out next year could have an approximate budget “close to 90%” without needing to draw so much from the Contingency Fund.
Commitment of 2% of GDP
The fact that military spending is diluted in different sections also creates a kind of war of numbers on the country's true military effort. If Spain calculated for 2021 a military budget of 9,409 million euros, 0.78% of GDP, the Stockholm International Institute for Peace Studies (Sipri) estimated that, for the same year, this figure reached 16,526 million euros, 1.4% of GDP, since it calculates it on different articles.
According to NATO, there were 12.546 million in that same 2021, which is equivalent to 1.04% of the country's wealth, according to data collected in the report by the Alternativas Foundation, of which Fonfría, from the Complutense University, is co-author. “A zero-based budget would be more useful. It's complicated, but it would give better control over spending,” he suggests.
Spain committed ten years ago to increasing its defense spending to 2% of its GDP, and the current government of Pedro Sánchez reaffirmed this two years ago at the Atlantic Alliance summit held in Madrid two years ago. “What we have not done in ten years, we want to do in six years, and that is a serious budgetary problem,” says Fonfría, who does not consider the government's plan to achieve the target it has set for 2029 to be realistic. “If it had been done gradually, these 2% would have been reached without major problems, but now it has to be done quickly, which can also generate endless management problems.”
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