The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, completed yesterday in Argentina the first day of his Ibero-American tour, in which he urged the “two progressive governments of Spain and Argentina” to lead the debate on vaccines “within the international community”.
“The best economic policy for our countries is to accelerate the vaccination process,” said Pedro Sánchez during a joint press conference after meeting with the President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, at the Casa Rosada, in Buenos Aires. “We applaud (U.S. President Joe) Biden’s announcements on patents, but we believe that it is not enough, and we have to accelerate technology transfer and production,” he continued.
“We believe that the international community as a whole has to increase production” and, therefore, “two progressive governments like those of Spain and Argentina have to lead this debate within the international community”, especially before the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), said Pedro Sánchez, who conveyed to Fernández “the solidarity of the Government and the people of Spain in these difficult times that Argentina is going through as a result of COVID-19”. .
Likewise, Sánchez defended an international financial architecture favorable to middle-income countries and expressed his support to Argentina in “its conversations with the International Monetary Fund and the Paris Club” to reduce its debt. “The Argentine government and society know that they can count on Spain,” he assured. “We are a faithful friend on the international stage, as we have demonstrated”, declared the President of the Executive, who recalled that Spain is one of the promoters of the Agreement between the EU and Mercosur, whose ratification and entry into force will allow both countries to collaborate even more intensely.
For his part, Alberto Fernández thanked Spain for its support in the negotiations with the multilateral credit organizations and in the framework of the pandemic. “They were always on our side, accompanying us and attending to our claims on the debt issue”, he declared. Likewise, the Argentine president assured that he views “with concern that 90 percent of vaccines are in the hands of 10 percent” and insisted on the need for the vaccine against the coronavirus to be “a global good” that would put an end to the “great inequity” generated by the unequal distribution of the doses.
Business Forum
The two leaders participated yesterday in the closing ceremony of the Argentina-Spain Business Forum, held at the Casa Rosada Historical Museum. “We believe in Argentina’s potential and we want our companies to help make it a reality, with a fairer and more sustainable model, and an inclusive recovery,” said Sánchez during the meeting, which brought together Spanish companies from numerous sectors, such as telecommunications, aviation, electricity, finance and gas, toll road management, waste and water treatment, construction, digital transformation consulting and information technologies, among others. Likewise, Sánchez pointed out the interest in deepening in other topics, such as technological innovation in defense and shipbuilding. Around 300 Spanish companies are present in Argentina, where they generate 92,000 jobs. Besides, Spain is also the second largest investor in Argentina and both maintain close trade relations, which in 2020 reached 2,060 million euros.
During the Business Forum, the president of CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, affirmed that “Spanish companies established in the country are at the disposal of the Government of the nation to collaborate and combat the effects derived from the pandemic”, a context “in which public-private collaboration is going to be decisive”. Garamendi was accompanied by the Director General of CEOE International and Permanent Secretary of CEIB, Narciso Casado. Also taking part in the event were Spain’s Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto; Argentina’s Minister of Economy, Martín Guzmán; the president of the UIA (the CEOE’s counterpart), Daniel Funes de Rioja; and the top representatives of leading companies with a presence in the country, such as Indra Argentina, Globant, URBASER and Newsan Food.
Reyes Maroto also accompanied Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Fernández to the signing of several bilateral agreements in the White Room of the Casa Rosada. Specifically, the two governments signed the 2021-2023 Action Plan, within the framework of the Strategic Partnership Plan, to identify joint proposals to counteract the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. Likewise, they agreed on the joint declaration Advancing Gender Equality and another declaration for the exchange of diplomatic archives documentation in order to clarify major human rights violations during the last Argentine dictatorship and contribute to the process of reconstruction of memory, truth and justice.
Precisely, Pedro Sánchez visited the former Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA), which was used as a detention and torture center during the last dictatorship and has now become a space for the memory of the victims and for the promotion and defense of human rights. Before concluding the day in Buenos Aires (and leaving for Costa Rica, the second and last stop of the tour), Sánchez met with representatives of the Spanish community, which, with almost 500,000 people, is the largest in the world. The meeting took place at the Hotel de Inmigrantes, where thousands of Spaniards stayed when they emigrated to Argentina. “This country welcomed them with generosity and with a spirit of solidarity for which Spain will always be grateful”, he declared before Alberto Fernandez.
