The armed forces drag a chronic lack of personnel that has its operation for years. Specifically, since The decline began a decade and a halfa period in which they have lost a total of 13,300 troops to … change, assume more and more missions and new responsibilities.
An example is the Military Emergency Unit (UME)created almost 20 years ago and turned into a successful model, but what It is nourished by armies and the Navy To fill their ranks, limiting the troops they have.
As of January 1, 2025, the Armed Forces were composed of a total of 116,739 peopleaccording to data from the Ministry of Defense. An ostensibly lower than 130.039 military who dressed uniform in 2010. since then The fall has been progressive And he has only experienced a slight increase during the last year, although of few 300 military.
Another example that this fall contrasts with an increasingly demanding environment They are the operations abroad, currently in record figures deployed. With More than 3,500 members of the Armed Forces in one of the operations In which Spain participates, the government can breastfeed its commitment to its international allies. However, this entails an enormous availability effort for the units. Each military deployed abroad requires an important logistics contingent behind.
Effective
The armed forces
Active duty number
Situation on January 1 of each year
Percentage and number / data of 2024
Fountain: Undersecretariat of Defense
Armed Forces
Active duty number
Situation on January 1 of each year
Percentage and number / data of 2024
Fountain: Undersecretariat of Defense
In addition, the missions work in rotations of, generally, Six months. This means that there are currently about 3,500 troops deployed, as many preparing for an upcoming mission and the same number in a rest period because it has just returned from an international operation. All of them must be subtracted from the personnel available to the units for their ordinary functioning.
Experts warn that this deficit of troops affects the operability of units and national defense
With this panorama, the Ministry of Defense works on a plan to alleviate this personnel deficit. Quantifies it in a Increase of about 20,000 troops until 2035an insufficient figure in the eyes of the professional associations of the Armed Forces. At the moment, the Council of Ministers approved this week a Royal Decree to increase in the four-year 2025-2029 General in 3,285 military. To this is added the increase in the offer of places in the academies of Troop and Marinery, although the associations warn that it is increasingly difficult to cover all the positions.
“There is a problem, the military career is not attractive to young people,” the spokesman for the Unified Association of Spanish Military (Increase), Iñaki Unibaso. Also from the Spanish Troop and Marinery Association (ATME), its president, Marco Antonio Gómezalerts that “the profession is not attractive” and the requests for admission are getting smaller. Both coincide in pointing out the low remuneration, geographical mobility or the lack of an attractive professional career such as the main ballasts for the growth of the armed forces.
Service commissions
Until solving these problems, with the current personnel deficit, armies and the Navy are forced to operate ordinarily with a thinned availability of troops. Especially visible is the case of Naval Force shipsthat regularly have to resort to personnel assigned to another ship as a endowment to cover their needs. “The service commissions are abused,” acknowledges the president of Incar on the mechanism to which officers resort to capture personnel from other units.
Also the Military Life Observatory He has given the alarm about this problem, which can also be aggravated if the international context demands greater military effort to Spain, points to ABC its president, Mariano Casado. «It is unavoidable to make an effort to provide the armed forces with the greatest number of men and women. It has been essential for years, without thinking that we could enter a scenario of another caliber, ”he warns, and explains that the State does not have agile mechanisms to increase the number of uniforms urgently in case of necessity or the template can be raised improvisedly. «You have to plan it. An increase in templates implies changes in accommodation, training centers, dining rooms, sports facilities, … », married.
“If we entered into the scenarios of another caliber, the template increase is not something that can be improvised”
The Observatory, a Advisory and Advisory Body under the General Courtshas also collected this situation in its annual reports. Casado himself warned of the parliamentarians in an appearance in the Senate last October. “The troops have decreased, but the degree of demand has increased,” he explained based on his visits to different military units and bases. It would be timely carry out a calm study on the troops and needs we have because it can affect not only working conditions but also the operation and the situation of our defense, ”he notified before the Defense Commission.
“Who goes to Ukraine?”
This situation connects with the current debate about a Increased military investment. From the Armed Forces they claim that this is not dedicated only to capacities or new weapons programs, but also the situation of the staff is also taken into account.
“Who is going to want to go to Ukraine with a payroll of 1,100 euros and without being considered a risk profession?” Asks the president of ATME.
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