The Position of the Galizan Nationalist Bloc (BNG) Regarding the Increase in European Military Spending and EU Warmongering

1. For peace, freedom for the peoples and human rights.

Faced with the militarist escalation announced by the majority of European presidents and heads of state with the backing of the Spanish government, the Galizan Nationalist Bloc (BNG) once again reiterates its categorical opposition to the warmongering strategy and its unwavering commitment to peace, freedoms, sovereignty of peoples and the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

We reaffirm our resolutely pacifist position opposed to imperialism and militarism in any shape or form. This position historically upheld by the BNG as more necessary and urgent today than ever.

We observe with alarm a European Union that kowtows to NATO and US militarism. Under the false pretence of what they refer to as strategic autonomy in a vain attempt to appear to be acting of its own accord, there are in fact merely giving in to pressure by the US for NATO member states to increase military spending in order to allow the US to contend with China in the Asia-Pacific region, benefiting the US arms industry and strategic interests.

We defend a Europe that no longer acts like a vassal to NATO and US interests and that replaces the suicidal warmongering of its leaders with the defence of social rights, universal public services, sovereignty of the peoples, democracy and peace as a model for society.

2. For a social Europe. No to increased military spending.

Over recent weeks, the political and media systems have wielded all of the tools at their disposal to build up and defend their warmongering stance, striving to impose a black and white them-and-us message that disparages anyone who dares speak out against the sabre-rattling. It suffices to look at what is really happening to expose the hypocrisy of this version of events.

The very EU that claims to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine is at the same time complicit in enabling the genocide of the Palestinian people committed by Israel with the wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. The Spanish government that is announcing more military spending to hold Russia at bay is the self-same one that is handing over the life, future and freedom of the Saharawi people to Morocco. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who ran to show her support for Netanyahu, is the same person now beating the war drums in Eastern Europe.

All of this set against a background where the international mechanisms and norms of organisations such as the International Criminal Court or the UN agencies and the UN itself are in tatters.

 

Current military spending by European countries actually outstrips that of Russia. According to data from 2023, European countries (excluding Ukraine and Turkey) set aside some 360 billion euros per year for military spending, compared with 115 billion for Russia. Ukraine assigns a further 60 billion.

It is clear that the decision to further hike military spending by the European Union and other European states outside the EU does not correspond at all to the existing objective reality or to a purported threat posed Russian military superiority to all of the European countries, which is the excuse they use to justify the arms race, militarisation which inevitably entails a massive increase in military spending.

It is tremendously worrying to see how the EU and the Spanish government itself are siding with a militarised Europe bowing to the dictates of NATO, ready to make society pay the price for the war in Ukraine clearly in line with the geostrategic war waged by the US in order to maintain its grip on an increasingly multipolar international world.

There are 90 million people currently at risk of poverty and social exclusion in the EU. Social unrest is caused by precarious working conditions, poverty and a lack of a sense of security that render it impossible for people to carry out their life projects. The European democracies are in crisis, undergoing an upsurge of the far right and fascism, and have decided that the time is ripe for warmongering, undermining social policies, cohesion and people’s rights. More military spending and less housing, healthcare, pensions and public services.

The BNG will not consent to this. They want to earmark 800,000 million euros for the war strategy. We will say NO and defend or response in the streets, in the parliaments and the institutions. Because it is a lie: more military spending does not mean more security. And because the consequences of the EU’s military escalation would have dire consequences for the majority of society whose rights and services will be axed.

We continue to uphold the same principles as ever: defending peace and the peaceful resolution to conflicts, human rights, democracy and freedoms, sovereignty of the peoples, denouncing imperialism and militarism and calling for the dissolution of NATO.

 

Originally published 13 March 2025 in Galizan.