US President Joe Biden made a friendly gesture to President Sánchez during the G-20 meeting in Rome in October. ANDREAS SOLARO (AFP)
Spain will reinforce its contingent in Eastern Europe as a sign of its commitment to NATO, which will hold a historic summit in Madrid in a month's time, on June 29 and 30.
According to government sources, the Ministry of Defense plans to deploy a battery of NASAMS surface-to-air missiles in Latvia to protect the Baltic republic from a possible Russian air attack.
It is an anti-aircraft defense system equipped with six AMRAAM missiles (of the fire-and-forget type) and a Sentinel radar, with a range of between seven and 10 kilometers.
The sending of this battery will mean a limited increase in the number of troops of the Spanish Army in Latvia, between 90 and 100, but it will provide the multinational tactical group deployed by NATO in this Baltic republic with a powerful defense capacity that it currently lacks .
Since 2017, Spain has participated in the Reinforced Advanced Presence (EPF) mission of the Atlantic Alliance with a tactical group made up of 350 soldiers and equipped with Leopardo and armored Pizarro tanks.
In March, the Government decided to reinforce this contingent, deployed at the Adazi base, 120 kilometers from the Russian border, under Canadian command, with an artillery unit with 155/52 caliber cannons, a unit of sappers and support elements logistics, until completing a total of 500 troops.
However, with the war in Ukraine prolonging, NATO is reinforcing the anti-aircraft defenses of Russia's neighboring countries.
In Poland, next to the base where the weapons supplied by Western countries to the Ukrainian government are received, the United States has deployed a battery of Patriot missiles.
The Spanish Army has not been able to send Patriot to Latvia because it already has a permanently stationed battery on Turkey's border with Syria and has resorted to the Norwegian-made NASAMS system, which performs a similar function.
The shipment to Latvia of this anti-aircraft battery constitutes, according to defense sources, a "strong signal" of Spain's solidarity with the allies most exposed to a spillover from the war in Ukraine and a sign of its commitment to the allied defense.
This Saturday is celebrated in Huesca in the traditional Armed Forces Day parade, suspended in the last two years due to the pandemic, and on Monday the 40th anniversary of Spain's entry into the Atlantic Alliance will be commemorated.
Although the decision to enter NATO was made by the centrist Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, from the now defunct UCD, with the opposition of the PSOE, the Government wants to celebrate it with all solemnity and has prepared an act in the Royal Palace presided over by the King, at the that the 30 ambassadors of the member countries of the Alliance, who make up the Atlantic Council and will travel to Madrid from Brussels, have been invited, as well as the secretary general of the organization, Jens Stoltenberg, and his predecessors during these four decades, among others personalities.
Monday's event will be the prologue to the allied summit in Madrid, which is being held at the end of next month and on which the government has been working for months.
Moncloa was trying to get the US president, Joe Biden, to receive Pedro Sánchez for the first time in the White House before traveling to the Spanish capital, but this possibility has already been ruled out.
On the other hand, a meeting between the North American president and his host has been closed on the margins of the allied summit, assure Spanish diplomatic sources.
Biden will travel to Madrid from Bavaria, where the G-7 summit concludes on June 28, and it is expected that he will attend the dinner that Felipe VI will offer to the leaders attending the allied summit that opens the following day. .
The NATO summit will gather in Madrid a quarantine of international leaders.
In addition to the 30 Heads of State and Government of the member countries of the organization, those of Sweden and Finland will be guests, whether Turkey has already lifted the veto on their entry and they have been able to sign their accession (opening the period of parliamentary ratifications) as if they have not.
The presence of the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, the four NATO partners in the Pacific, is also expected, which will make the strategic rivalry with China present at the summit.
On the other hand, it is not planned that there will be any meeting with the countries of the southern Mediterranean with which NATO maintains cooperation agreements, such as Tunisia.
Despite this, Spain is satisfied if, in the new Strategic Concept (the document that marks the Alliance's roadmap for the next decade), reference is made to "360-degree security" —that is, the risks that they come from the four cardinal points and not just from the east – and an express mention of the Sahel, despite the fact that the war in Ukraine will emphasize strengthening defense and deterrence.
It is also expected that a cooperation agreement will be signed in Madrid with the European Union, which has just approved its Strategic Compass (the community equivalent to the Strategic Concept) in which emphasis will be placed on the complementarity of both organisations, the need to avoid duplication and to take advantage of synergies.
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