The Monarch is fully informed about the development of Spanish foreign policy./ Photo: LD/La Razón.
The Diplomat. Madrid
Last Monday, His Majesty the King phoned the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel García-Margallo, to take an interest in how his visit to Cuba was developing, according to information provided to The Diplomat by diplomatic sources.
García-Margallo informed King Felipe about the activities he had developed and the ones he had planned on the island, as well as about the possibility of holding a meeting with the Cuban President, Raúl Castro. Finally, the meeting did not happen, according to the signs because the conference given by the minister about the Spanish Transition, with emphasis on some points that could be easily applied to Cuba, would have caused discontent.
The Monarch is informed in full detail about the development of the Spanish foreign policy and, especially, about what happens in Latin America, a region where he knows the majority of the top leaders, since he was present as Prince of Asturias when they took office.
The Caribbean country is the only one in Latin America that has not been visited by a Spanish Monarch
Cuba is the only Latin American country that has not received an official visit of a Spanish King, due to the lack of liberties in Castro’s regime, although King Juan Carlos attended, in 1999, the Ibero-American Summit celebrated in Havana and extended his stay for a day.
King Juan Carlos met Fidel Castro and, accompanied by the Queen and the president of the Government, José María Aznar, walked round several streets of the Old Havana, beautifully built with the help of the Spanish cooperation, but which were almost empty. Then, the Spanish media interpreted that the Cuban authorities abstained from announcing the walk of the King and Queen to express their discontent about the lack of an official visit, which they attributed to the refusal of Aznar’s Executive.
Although in the conversations of these past days with García-Margallo his interlocutors did not raise the issue of the official visit of the King, the Cuban authorities hope that is King Felipe who makes it. He will then have the opportunity to contemplate the Throne of the King of Spain at the former Palace of the Captains General of Havana, which is now the Museum of the City, but where no Spanish Monarch has ever sit, not even King Juan Carlos when he visited it in 1999.
