Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, yesterday publicly presented the new Feminist Foreign Policy Guide, whose priorities include the eradication of male violence, the promotion of the rights of women and girls in the world and the promotion of female participation in decision-making spaces.
“Equality is not an event, it is not a date, it is not an appointment, it is not a budget item, it is not a color, it is not a simple qualifier that accompanies a policy, it is the sum of all this and a little bit more”, said the minister during the event, held at the Moncloa Complex and also attended by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto, and the president of the Senate, Pilar Llop.
“A feminist diplomacy seeks to make a fairer world a reality, a world with women and men enjoying equal rights and equal opportunities and, therefore, a feminist diplomacy has to be a constant, it has to be the north that guides the compass of our country’s foreign action“, she continued.
Likewise, it must be “the point of reference wherever we want to be present, in the EU, in the defense of human rights, in the UN, in development cooperation, in economic diplomacy, in security and in the promotion of peace and also, why not, in the Ministry”. “A year ago there were only 14% of women ambassadors, today there are 21%, a small step forward in a path in which there is still much to be done”, she added.
For his part, Pedro Sánchez stated that Spanish feminist foreign policy must “integrate the gender approach in all phases of foreign policy under the leadership and commitment of the Government of Spain, the Ministries concerned and the Foreign Service”. For this reason, he continued, “we have to promote candidacies and the presence of women in international organizations”. “Every time there is an option to try to promote someone to a position of responsibility, we always try to make sure that it is a woman”, he added. “In a very concrete way, we have adopted the commitment to reach 25% of female ambassadors as opposed to 15% at the beginning of the legislature”, the chief executive assured.
“We are going to carry out the feminist foreign policy by also working with countries and international organizations”, Pedro Sánchez stated. “We have to promote agreements, identify joint projects, give visibility to women’s organizations and women human rights defenders”, because “feminist diplomacy is a key and operative tool to face the global challenges we are already facing”.
“Only feminist leadership and women’s equal participation in political, economic and social life will achieve true transformation in our countries. We want women to be equal so that they can be true transformers”, he concluded. The first woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, and the former EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Italy’s Federica Mogherini, also spoke at the event via videoconference, among others.
