Luis Ayllón
The Conference of Ambassadors, which should have been held on the 11th and 12th and was postponed due to the snowstorm, will finally take place on the 18th and 19th, but with the introduction of a change of emphasis in its program: the participation as a speaker of the second vice president of the Government, Pablo Iglesias, according to The Diplomat from reliable sources.
Iglesias, as well as the first vice president, Carmen Calvo, was not on the program that had been sent to the ambassadors for the meeting earlier this week, which was the third and fourth vice president of the Executive, Nadia Calviño and Teresa Ribera.
However, Pablo Iglesias has managed in recent days to be incorporated into the panel of participants, to present the topic. “Spain facing the challenge of the Agenda 2030”. In addition to being vice president, the leader of Unidas Podemos is minister of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 and will be the only member of the coalition government belonging to that formation who will take part in the meeting.
This is not the first time that Iglesias has broken into an activity related to Spanish foreign policy, something that, according to some sources, is not to the liking of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya.
At the beginning of November, González Laya was surprised when the second vice-president joined the retinue that accompanied His Majesty the King to the inauguration of Luis Arce as president of Bolivia, and in which she was the day minister. There, Iglesias maintained an intense parallel agenda, with meetings with diverse leaders of the left, and signed with them the so-called “Declaration of Peace in favor of democracy and against the ultra-right”. Both PP and Ciudadanos asked the government to explain its role in that trip.
Another of the Second Vice President’s foreign policy interventions has had Western Sahara as a protagonist, after his party has openly positioned itself in favor of a referendum on self-determination in the former Spanish territory, something that irritates Morocco. Furthermore, Iglesias himself revealed that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working “discreetly” to bring back a UN special envoy for Western Sahara.
Gonzalez Laya publicly tries to play down the incursions of the second vice-president in matters of his competence, but sources around him point out that the minister feels very uncomfortable with this action, which could provoke distortions in relations with other countries, as is the case with Morocco.
Now, after having designed a program for the Conference of Ambassadors to review the issues affecting foreign policy, González Laya has seen how Iglesias is integrated into the group of speakers, in principle to address the aspects of Agenda 2030.
The second vice president is expected to address the ambassadors on Tuesday 19, the same day that the third vice president and minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, will speak about the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan. For her part, the Fourth Vice-president and Minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera, will speak the day before on the subject: “Towards a green economy”.
The Conference will be opened on Monday, 18, by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and closed on Tuesday, by King Felipe VI. Throughout the two days, Gonzalez Laya and the Ministers of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, will also speak on immigration policy, and Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, on trade policy.
Speeches are also planned by the four Secretaries of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Under-Secretary and the General Directors responsible for different geographical areas in the Department.
The Conference will be held at Casa América, in a hybrid format, with the presence of a group of ambassadors who are in Madrid for vacations and with the rest participating via videoconference.
