On March 16, MEP Javier Zarzalejos participated in the seminar ‘1997. Spain in the integrated military structure. NATO Summit in Madrid’, organized by the FAES Foundation within the cycle of conferences on the Atlantic Alliance ‘Forty years of Spain in NATO: past, present and future’.<\/p>\n
Along with Zarzalejos, the meeting was attended by Josep Piqu\u00e9, Minister of the Government of Spain (1996-2003); Fernando Guti\u00e9rrez D\u00edaz de Otazu, Division General of the Army and spokesman for the Defense Commission of the Congress of Deputies, and Felipe Sahag\u00fan , professor of International Relations at the Complutense University, moderated by the journalist and researcher, Antxon Sarasqueta.<\/p>\n
The participants agreed that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine strengthens NATO as an essential actor for the security and freedom of citizens and highlighted the need to increase defense spending both in our country and in Europe as a whole. “The EU has to grow in the dimension of its security and enters uncharted territory and has to develop a muscle that it lacks,” stressed the MEP.<\/p>\n
He also recalled that “the one who is today the president of the government began by proposing to eliminate the Ministry of Defense.”<\/p>\n
On the other hand, he referred to relations with the United States, stating that “they have to recover on more mature bases on the European side.” \u201cThe USA can no longer think that Russia is a European problem that it can ignore,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n