Eduardo González
The way out of the crisis generated by the COVID-19 and the expectations that open up with the new presidency of Joe Biden will be the protagonists of the 25th edition of the Spain-United States Forum, which will be held between today and tomorrow in hybrid face-to-face and digital format at the initiative of its organizers, the Fundación Consejo España-EEUU and its North American counterpart, the United States-Spain Council.
The last edition was held in the city of San Antonio, in Texas, in 2019, an “extraordinary event that united Spaniards and Americans, politicians and businessmen, scientists and academics, film experts and military, all together talking about our interests”, said yesterday the president of the Fundación Consejo España-EEUU, Juan Lladó, during the press conference to present the forum.
“In 2020 it was going to be held in Spain and the best place where we Spaniards could invite the Americans to spend three days of discussions and debates was Bilbao, but it couldn’t be” because of the pandemic, and “in 2021 we hoped to go to Bilbao, but we couldn’t go either, and that’s why we invented this hybrid formed” for this year’s edition, he continued. “In 2022 we want to invite our friends in Bilbao, already with a real normality”, Lladó added.
According to the president of the Council Foundation, the current edition will be focused on “two themes: how to recover from the crisis, now that we seem to be winning the battle against COVID, and the new US administration, which has arrived loaded with encouragement and illusion”.
At the same press conference, Joaquín Castro, congressman for the State of Texas and honorary president of the United States-Spain Council, also expressed his wish that “next year we can meet personally in Bilbao” and stated, in reference to the major themes of the forum, that “for all the countries of the world, including the United States and Spain, the priority is to get out of the pandemic and help other nations to get rid of this scourge”, which includes improving trade relations between two “trading partners” such as the United States and Spain.
The other major priority of the forum is “the new presidential administration, a vital transition for us, because the previous administration of Donald Trump disengaged from international cooperation, including bilateral cooperation with key partners”, he explained. In this sense, he assured, Biden’s purpose is to “further strengthen the transatlantic alliance, including nations like Spain”.
The event will bring together public and private sector leaders from both countries to address current issues of common interest in the economic, technological, political and cultural fields. Speakers will include Nadia Calviño, Second Vice President and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation; Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy; Arancha González Laya, Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation; Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and Conrad Tribble, Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Spain, among many others.
As the presidents explained, this year’s program will focus on two main themes: The economy after Covid-19: towards a more resilient, inclusive and sustainable recovery, and Revitalizing transatlantic relations: repairing alliances and sustaining multilateralism.