The Diplomat
The State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and for Latin America and the Caribbean, Cristina Gallach, began a tour of Guinea Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire yesterday with immigration and security issues on her agenda.
Gallach, whose visit to these two countries is part of the government’s desire to strengthen its relations with West African countries, will meet in Guinea Bissau with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Suzi Barbosa, who visited Madrid in January.
According to a press release from the Spanish Foreign Ministry, Gallach will focus his talks in the country on deepening cooperation on migration issues and also on the tourism and fishing sectors, which are of particular interest to Spanish companies. He will also address the debt-for-investment process in the development of Guinea-Bissau.
Gallach will then travel to Côte d’Ivoire, which is considered a privileged and priority partner for Spain in the Africa Focus 2023, recently approved by the government, as well as in the 3rd Africa Plan, which places Côte d’Ivoire as a privileged and priority partner for Spain.
The State Secretary will try to promote the negotiations of the Agreement for the Reciprocal Protection and Promotion of Investments (APPRI), in addition to meeting with Spanish companies present in the African country.
The visit to Côte d’Ivoire also has a security component, as Spain wants to convey its support for the effort to prevent the spread of the terrorist threat from the Sahel to the countries of the Gulf of Guinea, where the problem of piracy is also on the rise.
Gallach plans to visit the Regional Maritime Security Coordination Centre, which fights piracy and other organised crime networks.
The Spanish Navy carries out training and advisory tasks for the Ivorian Navy, as well as joint manoeuvres through the biannual deployment of a ship. The Maritime Action Vessel ‘Furor’ is scheduled to arrive in the port of Abidjan on 31 May, where it will remain until 5 June.
In both countries, the State Secretary plans to meet with a group of women leaders to exchange experiences with them within the framework of the feminist foreign policy that the government is promoting.
Gallach’s tour will be completed with a stop on Friday in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where in addition to visiting Casa África’s headquarters, she will also have the opportunity to visit the World Food Programme’s (WFP) logistics pre-positioning centre for West Africa and the Civil Guard’s Canary Islands Regional Coordination Centre.
