Luis Ayllón
His Majesty the King will close the Conference of Ambassadors to be held on the 11th and 12th at Casa América, recovering an initiative suspended since 2008, as The Diplomat reported.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will be in charge of opening a meeting to which all Spanish ambassadors abroad have been invited, although only a part of them will be present at the event.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, summoned all the heads of mission, indicating that those who will be in Spain on vacation could be present. The rest will attend telematically, by videoconference, since the Ministry does not pay for their travel expenses.
The call recaptures the Conferences of Ambassadors that began to be held in 2001, with José María Aznar as President of the Government. Since then, they have taken place every two years, the last time in 2008, with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as the head of the Executive. The deep economic crisis experienced from that year onwards and the need to cut down on the expenses involved in moving more than a hundred ambassadors to Spain, forced the suspension of these appointments, which are taking place in many of the countries around us.
Now, Sánchez and González Laya want to recover the initiative with a hybrid formula, to present the ambassadors with different aspects of Spanish policy with repercussions abroad.
For this reason, the program of the Conference, to which The Diplomat had access, includes interventions by the Minister of Foreign Affairs herself, who will present the “strategic lines of foreign policy”, as well as the third and fourth Vice-presidents of the Government and the Ministers of the Interior and of Industry, Trade and Tourism. Neither the First Vice President, Carmen Calvo, nor the Second Vice President, Pablo Iglesias, are on the program.
Specifically, the Third Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, will speak about the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. In turn, the topic to be addressed by the Fourth Vice President and Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, will be entitled: “Towards a Green Economy”.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, will speak on trade policy; and the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, on immigration policy.
The four Secretaries of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Undersecretary and the General Directors responsible for different geographical areas in the Department are also scheduled to speak.
