The Liberal Initiative (IL) is standing in addition to the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces (CEMGFA), Admiral Silva Ribeiro, in the call for one reinforcement of funds for the military.
In response to DN news about the priorities for the review of the Military Programming Act (LPM) outlined by the Admiral Silva Ribeiro in the document “Military Strategic Vision for the Portuguese Armed Forces 2022/2034″emphasizes IL that “CEMGFA’s concerns about the obsolescence of military equipment and a shortage of human resources come meet consecutive warnings that IL made in parliament and arising from the divestment of successive governments in the Defense field🇧🇷
The Liberal Coordinator for Defense, Patricia Gilvas points out that “Admiral Silva Ribeiro pointed out the need to increase resources for the armed forces due to the new strategic challenges and the expansion of military operations into other domains (such as cyberspace) and the Portuguese government must take these warnings seriously🇧🇷
IL understands that “it is not enough for the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister to empty proclamations about the commitments made by Portugal within NATO and whistle to the side when the time comes to fulfill these commitments, to ensure better management of the armed forces and to make them more attractive”.
More, strengthens Gilvaz,”not acceptable that, even in the face of threats such as the Russian or the Chinese, the PS government only thinks about complying with the target of 2% of GDP contribution to NATO in the end of the decade🇧🇷
“The signs that the discourse and practice of António Costa and Helena Carreiras do not coincide are becoming increasingly clear,” he says.
The Liberal Initiative considers “the presentation of the LPM to be urgent and that it protects the emerging risks that NATO has already identified” and that “the priorities listed in the new Strategic concept of national defense reflect the concerns identified by the experts”.
A few months after leaving office (March 2023), CEMGFA Silva Ribeiro leaves a “Military Strategic Vision for the Portuguese Armed Forces 2022/2034” and highlights the priorities of the armed forces for the next 12 years.
With the war in Ukraine in the background, he describes the document as a “cohesive and pragmatic reference for the debate that will spark the revision of the LPM”.
As reported by DN,”Obsolescence and obsolescence of military assets”, “blocks” for the execution of the LPM, staff cadres “way belowof needs are some of the obstacles identified by CEMGFA for our armed forces to meet “future challenges”.
This document constitutes a reference, coherent and pragmaticfor the debate that the review of the LPM will initiate on short, medium and long term military programming, to set priorities for building and sustaining military capabilities between 2022 and 2034. implement the priorities that will be defined, with boldness, determination and innovationwrote Silva Ribeiro.
For the Chief of Armed Forces, this means “overcoming a series of strategic challenges”, including the “expansion of military operations into new domains, such as cyberspace”, “emerging technologies with high disruptive potential”, the difficulties in “building and maintaining military capabilities, because of the very significant increase in costs”, the “increasing financial needs”.
Draws attention “some blocks that negatively impacted the performance of the LPMnamely, the delay and uncertainty in the transition of balances from one year to the next, and the constraints on the allocation of available resources, which are necessary for the fulfillment of contractual processes”.
That points out Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “formed new and urgent needs for operational deployment” that “recommend an increase in government investment in defense, consistent with the commitment from all NATO alliesat the Wales summit in 2014, to allocate 2% of gross domestic product to this area by 2024”.
It should be recalled that the government has already said that the target for this year is 1.66%. In an interview with Público, Defense Minister Helena Carreiras even indicated that the 2% target would not be until the “end of the decade”.
CEMGFA also warns of the declining number of military personnel, a trend that was already observed when she took office in 2018.”The number of employees required so that the armed forces can fulfill their mission, there are between 30,000 and 32,000. Stocks in the organization chart are quite below of that reference interval, even verifying a tendency to decrease,” he emphasizes.
Nevertheless the document “Military Strategic Vision for the Portuguese Armed Forces 2022/2034” was removed from the EMGFA website after publication of the DN.
Some deputies who unsuccessfully tried to access it directly on that official page, where it was located, or through the link in the distinguished text, asked this newspaper for a copy of that text and alerted our newspaper.
Have questioned Silva Ribeiro’s office about the reason for this measure, it has not yet responded.
Source: DN
