IT’S. Portugal will have to open its purse strings
The “requirements” are clear and are reflected in the third version of the Strategic Compass for Security and Defense of the EU (guiding document for European foreign and security policy) which today brings together heads of state and government of the 27: “Spend more money on military capabilities (…), invest in defense technological innovations (…), reduce technological and industrial dependencies”.
The document, with more than 40 pages, which further details the proposals that will serve as a guideline for foreign policy and for the next eight years, highlights the “geopolitical changes” [em particular a estratégia de Putin de alargar as suas “esferas de influência” e o “rival sistémico” chamado China ] who are ‘challenging’ Europe to defend its ‘interests’.
The solution is a quantum leap to face those who, like the Russian leader, in addition to “military” attacks use “hybrid tactics” (an alarmed concept that encompasses, at the limit, acts considered to be terrorism), of “energy coercion, cyberattacks, manipulation and nuclearist”.
A “leap” that calls for increased funding and the creation by 2025 of a rapid-intervention military force and an increase in civilian and military missions imply changes in control and command structures.
“It’s an inevitability”, guarantees Martins da Cruz, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and former Portuguese ambassador to NATO, because “Russia has mortally hit the European defense system”.
“Which means that the government, probably already this year but especially things in next year’s State Budget, will have to reconcile: the consequences of the pandemic and the social and health ones that it implied and will continue to imply; the consequences he says.
Francisco Seixas da Costa, former Secretary of State and Portuguese Ambassador to the UN and consider that “he will seek to rethink the OSCE effort [financeiro] vis-a-vis NATO and a rethinking in the European Union of the funds allocated to security and defense and this will imply on the part of the Portuguese state a review of the distribution of funds for defence. But there is here an element of a global strategic nature that Portugal has to assume. Portugal cannot be less supportive in the allocation of funds than other countries because it is not very close to the conflict zone”.
In the case “everything can”, says Europe, “an agreement with the financial perspective, the opinion on GDP that goes to European expenditure depends on a say in the allocation of funds. GDP for the purposes of competition, but there is no flexibility from the European financial authorities to make this happen”.
War budget?
Bernardo I, associate researcher at CIEP, recalls that “that Budget that the Prime Minister of State could not foresee, naturally, neither the impacts nor the consequences. Practically “nobody had reached 2%, but now there is a movement in NATO to reinforce yours. And there is the commitment, more accentuated by the fact that Germany had here that it was going to move to 2%”.
Source from the Prime Minister’s Office [que hoje estará na reunião de Versalhes] That nothing can be said, now, about the Portuguese contribution as there is still no new government, no new parliament, no State Budget.
Ana Miguel dos Santos, coordinator of the PSD parliamentary group in the National Defense Commission, is in favor of investment by the EU and that the NATO target of 2% is reached, “but a request for gradual investment”. “If the goal is to fulfill the reform of the system, then NATO is to reach it in 2024. What matters is fulfilling the obligation, our system to restructure, to restructure what matters in security and defense, in an armed forces, to defend, to fulfill the obligation. In 21st century forces. And avoid a rational form and necessary resources in the security forces.
Socialist Marcos Perestrello, president of the National Defense Commission, considers that “there will be a need to strengthen defense and deterrence capabilities in Europe and Portugal cannot be left behind. a reinforced reinforcement”.
About anticipating like forecasting targets [os 2% do PIB em gastos com a defesa em 2024]the deputy states that he cannot be in a hurry because “this translates into equipment, operation, maintenance and personnel. And all these are skills that take time to grow, it does not happen overnight”.