Losses of personnel dragged since 2008 compromise the operability of the armies | The most affected is the Air
Each Spanish fighter pilot who has been controlling Russian planes in the mission NATO of the Baltic receives 2,000 euros net per month. It is not the pecuniary but the vocational that keeps these young people in the cramped cabin of the Eurofighters, each valued at 100 million euros, the vanguard of air defense.
Spain only has 21 active experts capable of handling a Eurofighter. After decades of budget cuts since the bubble crisis, the lack of specialized personnel is the main enemy that the Air and Space Army faces today. Its commanders calculate that they need 5,700 professionals right now to maintain the operability required by 24/7 surveillance of an airspace of 2.2 million square kilometers and missions abroad. On the contrary, air defense “can be very affected & rdquor;warn sources from that army.
The case of the Air Force is the most pressing, but not the only one. In all the Armed Forces there is a minimum lack of personnel of about 20,000 soldiersthe sum of the needs admitted to this newspaper by senior officers of the three armies.
Both enlisted men and sailors are missing as well as, and it is one edge of the problem, non-commissioned officers and specialist officers. Time is not running in your favor: training a fighter pilot to fly a Eurofighter takes a minimum of five years. The problem will worsen when the new submarines of the S80 lineage sail, or when, for example, in the modernization process undertaken by Defense, the internet of weapons and artificial intelligence are part of the arsenal.
Time is not on our side: training a fighter pilot to fly a Eurofighter takes a minimum of five years
The demand for “full operability & rdquor; It is divided into 12,000 ground soldiers, the 5,700 most peremptory from the Air Force and 4,000 soldiers and 2,700 civilians who request the Navy.
In troops and sailors (from soldier to corporal) the ceiling for personnel in the Armed Forces has fallen from 86,000 in 2010 to 79,000, the maximum allowed by law until December 31.
Staff shortage
The sources consulted in the three armies indicate that Land has lost 7,000 positions in this period, 5,000 the Air and 2,393 the Navy. On Earth, the demand is “relative”. The adjective is put by a Defense executive: “It depends on the ambition of each government & rdquor ;, he explains about an army that rotates its best units for NATO and EU missions with a narrow margin of replacement. That is one of the reasons for the intense foreign training of the Spanish military.
Some elite units, such as the Parachute Brigade, have operating at no more than 70% of the soldiers that its modern planning foresees: 500 paratroopers in each battalion… designed for 700. That’s 3,000 in total.
In the Navy, the phenomenon provides admirals with another headache: the shortage of military personnel makes family reconciliation a problem. “Labor rights cannot be limited of the sailors, but that implies that the commander of a ship does not have all his crew ready for any need or for prolonged outings -explains a senior Navy officer-. And on a ship, when one is missing, a lot of work is charged to the others.” On average, 10% of each crew takes advantage of conciliation measures.
“The labor rights of sailors cannot be limited, but the ship’s commander does not have all his crew enlisted,” explains a Navy commander
Defense, in any case, affects the conciliation measures to make military employment more attractive. The Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday a Royal Decree that makes life easier for military couples stationed on different islands, or for parents of children under 12 years of age who cannot be forced to be assigned when they have three months left to go to the reserve.
mismatch
“In economic crises, more young people go to the barracks that when the economy is doing well & rdquor ;, comments a veteran of the Navy recruiting area. But that is not the reason for the sustained lack of personnel in the forces that parade this October 12 in the Castellana de Madrid; It is not as important as the spending cuts that have kept Spain eight tenths of GDP below its commitment to NATO.
And again where the problem is most evident is in the Air and Space Army, according to sources from that branch. Its workforce is 17% of the Spanish Armed Forces, when in the United Kingdom 22% of its soldiers serve the Royal Air Force, and they are 22.7% in France and 27.09 in Germany.
Solving the imbalance and placing the Air Force in 25% of the Spanish armies would mean increase a staff that in 2008 was 28,000 soldiers and today is 23,000. In this period, the missions have multiplied: not only the perpetual surveillance of the peninsula, the islands and the sea itself, but also the projection of force that the foreign aerial police missions in Eastern Europe and Africa have entailed, or even climate change: this tragic summer of forest fires, Air Force pilots have flown firefighting planes three times more than in 2021.
An endemic problem also afflicts this army: the flight of trained personnel when they fulfill their commitment to stay for 12 years after leaving the General Air Academy. “There have been years that 40 pilots and controllers have left us&rdquor ;, says one of the officers consulted.
Flight of talent
The loss of experts It is also frequent in the Navy, with a hemorrhage of 120 civilians a year who find other jobs, “a significant loss of talent and experience,” explains the aforementioned naval source.
The figure is hard for a force that enlists 26,600 people, with an authorized maximum of 20,940 soldiers. Today the Navy has 20,530 sailors active, with almost 3,000 removed from the service for courses or other special situations. There are 17,505 available (deficit of 17%), but they don’t have enough civilian support, essential in the Navy: 2,270 civilian workers are active… of 5,000 that the general planning considers necessary.
For its part, Tierra tries to maintain the structural balance of its 68,674 components, of which 10% are officers, 20% are non-commissioned officers (heart muscle of that body) and 70% troops.
Of the total, 78% are members of the Force; 16% are in the Force Support structure, and 6% work in Headquarters structures.
The average age of its professionals is 34.1 years. They are not the oldest in the Armed Forces, but they do have an added problem of veteran status in the future: the accumulation year after year of those who end their military life by turning 45.
Defense pays one provision of 600 euros to those over 45 who have left the ranks and do not have a public job (Those who do not have a job or find a job in the private sector can collect it). Currently there are 1,800 recipients, which already imply about 15 million euros a year of load for the accounts of the ministry directed by Margarita Robles. In five years, the annual bill will be more than 50 million, predict the sources consulted. And in fifteen years, the cost can reach a eurofighter a year.