The Spanish government will experience the NATO summit with mixed feelings. On the one hand, it foresees a place in the history books for itself thanks to the sudden importance that the war in Ukraine has brought to the summit: what is happening in Madrid is comparable to the fall of the Berlin Wall, said Thursday in El Mundo the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares. At the same time, all the attention for the war means that the main goal that Spain set for this summit has actually been lost from sight.
That primary objective is to broaden NATO’s deployment to the European southern flank of the alliance, particularly North Africa and the Sahel. Islamist terrorism and extreme poverty have plunged countries like Mali and Burkina Faso into misery. Russian mercenaries from the company Wagner show up in Mali, where they hastened the end of France’s (highly criticized) counter-terrorist mission. As if that weren’t enough, a pre-existing food crisis in the Sahel threatens to turn into a catastrophe as food prices rise as a result of the war in Ukraine.
It is causing nervousness in Spain, which sees the problems across the Strait of Gibraltar growing day by day. There are fears that the unrest is sparking an even greater influx of refugees than last year, when 39,000 migrants reached Spanish territory without proper papers.
Ties to African countries
At and around the summit, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government does not miss an opportunity to emphasize the importance of looking beyond the east. “Recognizing the threats coming from the southern flank,” Sanchez called that on Tuesday during a visit by Biden to the Moncloa, the government palace. For example, there could be cooperation with Mauritania, a country in the region. That attended a dinner with NATO foreign ministers in Madrid on Wednesday evening, and Sanchez tightened ties with them earlier this year.
His efforts have not prevented Sanchez’s ‘own’ summit from turning almost entirely around Russian aggression. The South is a footnote in the Strategic Concept presented on Wednesday, which sets out NATO’s direction for the next ten years. The countries “will work with partners to address shared security risks and challenges in regions of strategic importance to the alliance,” such as “North Africa and the Sahel.”
It doesn’t get any more specific. It also remains unclear what exactly the Spaniards want in Africa. Stopping migrants has traditionally not been a NATO task. In addition, the alliance already lacks soldiers for a major permanent power in the east, and the Americans believe that European allies should solve the problems “on their edges” themselves, as some of them attempted earlier within the French counter-terror mission. . Above all, they want Sánchez to increase his defense budget; that is now 1 percent of GDP, the lowest percentage of NATO after Luxembourg.