Amid rising threats of NATO states led by France to ship troops to Ukraine to combat Russia, Spain’s Socialist Occasion (PSOE)-Sumar coalition authorities admitted that the Port of Maó (in Spanish, Mahon) on Menorca has now turn out to be a naval base to supply logistical help to NATO fleets. The federal government can be escalating its struggle propaganda in opposition to Russia and growing army spending to file ranges, as NATO nations again Israeli genocide in Gaza and NATO bombing of Yemen.
The port has a important geostrategic location within the Mediterranean. It’s on the centre of the western Mediterranean, 400 kilometres from the opposite key ports, together with Marseille in France, Algiers in Algeria and Alghero on the Italian island of Sardinia. Situated in a big pure harbour, Maó has massive gas and water tanks, in addition to unused underground tunnels, facilitating the resupply of NATO ships anchoring or docking within the space.
With contempt for mass working class opposition to struggle, the PSOE-Sumar authorities introduced this through the pro-PSOE day by day El País, a spearhead of anti-Russian struggle propaganda in Spain. However in truth, in accordance with El País, the earlier PSOE-Podemos authorities had already covertly determined a yr in the past to designate a serious Spanish port as a base for NATO operations within the Center East, West Africa, the Crimson Sea and the Mediterranean. This came about behind the backs of the Spanish folks.
Posted on Good Friday because the nation went on holidays and the principle media was busy masking the climate, the site visitors scenario and spiritual processions, El País reported that authorities sources “confirmed” the choice to the newspaper. Even the Balearic regional authorities was stunned. Regional premier, Marga Prohens, informed Diario de Mallorca, “We’ve discovered within the press.”
El País reported, “In April final yr, the Spanish authorities provided Maó to the Atlantic Alliance as a ‘port with everlasting diplomatic authorisation’ in order that the allied ships that participated in NATO can dock and anchor,” it stated. Since then, it has been functioning as such.
The port has already been offering help to Operation Sea Guardian, led by NATO’s Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM) based mostly in Northwood, UK. Launched in 2016, the operation is the inheritor to Energetic Endeavor, initiated by NATO after the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda assaults. Its aims embody monitoring the motion of Russian ships within the Mediterranean and controlling the Crimson Sea and West Africa, utilizing the pretext of acts of piracy within the Gulf of Guinea and the Horn of Africa.
MARCOM is now closely concerned within the Crimson Sea assaults in opposition to the Houthi militia in Yemen, which goals to disrupt provides to the Israeli army in solidarity with the Palestinians. The US, Britain and their allies are bombing the Houthis while amassing an armada within the Center East to again Israel’s struggle on Gaza and to arrange for a wider struggle in opposition to Iran and Iranian-linked forces.
The Spanish ruling class additionally hopes to leverage Maó for its personal imperialist ambitions in West and North Africa. After Spain and Italy efficiently lobbied NATO to concentrate on its “southern flank” ultimately yr’s Madrid NATO Summit, it’s anticipated that NATO will undertake its first-ever Southern Flank technique on the Washington summit in July. In response to the pro-NATO Atlantic Council, the Southern Flank technique will concentrate on stopping migration to Europe and defending Europe’s financial pursuits:
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe has decreased oil and gasoline imports from Russia and elevated imports from the MENA area. As of the final quarter of 2023, the European Union (EU) imported 21 % of its oil from three MENA nations: Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. The EU additionally imported 17.8 % of its gaseous-state pure gasoline from Algeria and 24.1 % of its liquefied pure gasoline from Libya and Qatar. Instability on NATO’s Southern Flank can be a possible menace to the maritime commerce that flows by way of the Mediterranean Sea, which accounts for 15 % of the world’s transport by port calls and 10 % of the world’s transport by vessel weight.
The Southern Flank technique, the Atlantic Council states, may contain growing army coaching and help to former colonial nations throughout Northern Africa and the Sahel, to “put together for future army operations within the area” and improve “assets for Operation Sea Guardian, permitting for extra maritime situational consciousness, extra maritime counterterrorism, and, particularly, extra maritime safety capability constructing with regional companions.”
That’s, the Southern Flank technique means making ready to violently suppress mounting opposition to NATO throughout Africa. France, the USA, Germany, Spain and different NATO powers have all cited Islamist forces like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and Boko Haram as a pretext for wars aiming to take care of management of Africa’s wealthy pure assets. These wars have provoked mass opposition and led to the launching of coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in opposition to pro-NATO regimes there.
These coups and wars are inextricably linked to NATO’s struggle on Russia in Ukraine, for the reason that newly shaped army juntas within the Sahel nations sought army help from Russia.
On Saturday, the Ministry of Protection posted a cynical assertion to minimise the impression of the El País report. It said “there is no such thing as a provision” for Maó to function a NATO base, “past its present function as a particular port of name for everlasting fleets of the Alliance.” That’s to say, it issued an empty “denial” that in actuality confirmed that Maó will likely be used as a army base in opposition to Russia.
The press ludicrously portrayed the Ministry assertion as a response to what the media promotes because the “left” in Spain. Leaders of Podemos—its basic secretary, Ione Belarra, and its political secretary and candidate for the European elections, Irene Montero—have cynically postured as critics of the choice. Montero stated “the Parliament voted for a main minister for Spain, not a secretary basic of NATO. To not the struggle. Not in our title.”
In the meantime, in her X account, Belarra wrote that NATO bases in Spain “not solely characterize an unacceptable switch of sovereignty, they’re additionally taking part in a key function in US help for the genocide that Israel is committing in opposition to the Palestinian folks.”
The actual fact is that Podemos is deeply implicated within the determination to make use of Maó as a NATO base, in addition to in Spain’s arming of the Israeli regime in opposition to Gaza: These choices have been taken when Podemos was in workplace! It was a part of a broader operation to help NATO’s maritime technique, together with the US-Spain settlement signed in 2022 below Podemos. The settlement permits two extra US destroyers within the naval base of Rota in Cádiz, and supplies for the garrisoning of as much as 1,800 troops. The port has been used to help US operations to help Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen.
Below Podemos, Spain additionally determined to supply 1,700 troops and jet fighters in Japanese Europe to strengthen NATO’s jap flank to arrange for struggle in opposition to Russia. This entailed deploying troops and gear to Latvia, Romania, Bulgaria and different nations, whereas funneling tanks, ammunition and rocket launchers to NATO’s proxy forces in Ukraine.
Stopping the struggle requires mobilizing working class opposition by way of an uncompromising battle in opposition to the PSOE-Sumar authorities. This contains the pseudo-left Podemos social gathering that, having laid the groundwork for imperialist struggle insurance policies in energy, is now working exterior the federal government to tie employees to the bankrupt perspective of launching ethical appeals to the ruling events. The important thing difficulty is to construct a global, anti-war motion within the working class, in irreconcilable opposition to pseudo-left events like Podemos and Sumar, and within the battle for socialism.