The Diplomat in Spain

Iván Duque, Carlos Alvarado, Evo Morales and Sebastián Piñera.

Luis Ayllón. 27/07/2018

Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Bolivia are the countries chosen by the President of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, to develop their first Ibero-American tour, which will take place between August 27 and 31, according to The Diplomat from reliable sources.

The tour is part of the plan designed in Moncloa to mark the priorities of the chief executive in matters of foreign policy, among which has clearly been the European Union, with whose leaders has maintained most of his contacts since he came to office. Yesterday, he met in Madrid with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, after having made his first trip abroad to Paris, and today he will participate in Lisbon in a summit on interconnections with Macron himself; with the Portuguese Prime Minister, Antonio Costa; and with the president of the Commission; Jean Claude Juncker.

Sánchez broke the custom maintained by José María Aznar, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy to make his first trip to Morocco, because he wanted to reinforce the importance he attaches to Europe. Now, with the tour of Latin America, he also intends, according to the consulted sources, to underline the commitment with that region, not only from the economic point of view, but also politically and culturally.

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The President of the Government will travel to these four countries from August 27 to 31

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The inclusion of more than one country in the trip returns to the model maintained by Felipe González and José María Aznar of touring several capital cities, something that both Rodríguez Zapatero and Rajoy did not usually do.

In addition, according to the same sources, it has been tried that the tour had destinations in which there is a variety of government models, ranging from the Colombia of Ivan Duque, who is about to assume the Presidency of the country; to Bolivia of Evo Morales, who moves in the Bolivarian orbit; passing through the Chile of the conservative Sebastián Piñera; and for Costa Rica, where Carlos Alvarado, a social democrat, has been president for a few months.

Morocco would be, therefore, as the third point of interest, already for the month of September, and not so much because relations with the neighbor of the South are not considered key, but because it is not easy to specify the time of the visit, due to the frequent absences from the country of King Mohamed VI.