The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, reiterated this Friday her refusal for Spain to participate in any type of mission in the Red Sea. “The decision is not intervene in the Red Sea,” the head of the Spanish Armed Forces concluded before the media. Her statement comes a few hours after the members of the Operation Prosperity Guardian They will attack Houthi positions in Yemen with the launch of Tomahawk missiles.
Robles has insisted that “Spain is a country firmly committed with peace in the world” and has given as an example the 17 peace missions in which it participates, which makes it “the country in the European Union with the greatest representation in missions”. However, it has once again reiterated: ” From the beginning we have said that Spain will not participate because it is firmly committed to other missions.
This clarification comes three weeks after David Austin, Secretary of State of Defense of the United States, announced in Bahrain the participation of Spain as part of a coalition of countries in the Operation Guardian of Prosperity. After his statements, Defense had to come forward and deny this statement. Despite the fact that the United States made another approach towards Spain on January 9, when the American Chief of Staff, General Charles Browncontacted by telephone his Spanish counterpart, Admiral Teodoro Esteban López Calderón, Robles has stated that they do not feel pressured. “We as Spaniards decide where we intervene, always under the umbrella of the European Union, NATO or the United Nations,” he insisted and then stressed that “Spain makes its own decisions, no country has to tell it where to intervene.”
In addition to ensuring that “there has been no pressure because the United States knows that Spain makes its decisions from the commitment to allies“, Defense sources have reported that the Biden executive has apologized on numerous occasions for having announced participation in a mission that was never put on the table. It was, according to these sources, a mistake which has already been resolved with the appropriate apologies.
On January 22, the European Union will discuss the proposal of the External Action Service, commanded by High Representative Josep Borrell, to carry out a non-executive support mission in the Red Sea. It would be a mission in which the European Union would have a logistical role, but without intervening with weapons. “We do not know if the European Union is going to approve a mission but in the meantime Spain’s decision is not intervene in the Red Sea”, insisted Robles, who also stated that “Spain is not opposed to the Union being able to take on the missions it decides”, although the country would not participate.