Eduardo González
José Manuel Albares said yesterday, after taking office as the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, that one of the priorities of his mandate will be “to strengthen relations with our southern neighbors, especially with Morocco, our neighbor and friend to the south”. Likewise, he remembered at the last minute his predecessor to announce, during his speech for the transfer of portfolio, the “honorary appointment” of Arancha González Laya as “advisor” to the minister.
“It is a day of great emotion because I am returning home”, said Albares in his first words after the portfolio handover, which took place at the Santa Cruz Palace hours after promising his post together with the rest of the new ministers at the Zarzuela Palace, in the presence of the King and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. The Santa Cruz ceremony was attended by the Second Vice-President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz; the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños; the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska; the four Secretaries of State and the Undersecretary of the Ministry and the directors of AECID and the Cervantes Institute. Also in attendance were former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former Foreign Ministers Ana de Palacio, Marcelino Oreja and Josep Piqué and, for various reasons (Josep Borrell was to preside over the EU Foreign Affairs Council), none of the former Foreign Ministers of previous Socialist governments.
“There is no greater honor for a Spaniard, especially if he is a diplomat, than to represent Spain abroad”, but “I am well aware that I am assuming the Ministry in very difficult times for the whole planet”, he continued. “We have never before had a world health crisis”, which has derived into an economic and social crisis and, “if we do not get it right, it can become a diplomatic crisis due to the imbalances that the management of vaccines and the pandemic can produce”, he warned.
However, declared the new minister, “we are Spain, and Spain is not just any country”, because it is a country “with a voice and weight in Europe”. “We believe in Europe and we have to continue building Europe”, especially in view of the prospect of “the 2023 Presidency, in which we have to give the best of ourselves for Spain and for Europe”, he added. Spain will assume the Presidency of the Council of the EU in the second half of 2023, in the final stretch of the current legislature.
In addition, Spain is part of Ibero-America in a world in which “almost 500 million people have Spanish as their mother tongue, and that language must be heard loudly in the world and be present in all areas, from literature to Artificial Intelligence”, he added.
The other great geographical vocations of Spain, Albares assured, are the African continent (especially the Sahel and West Africa), the Atlantic (after the arrival in the White House of “a new administration” whose “vision on multilateralism, values and progress in the world is exactly the same as that of Pedro Sánchez’s government”) and the Mediterranean and “the southern neighborhood, with which we must further strengthen relations, especially with Morocco, our neighbor and friend to the south“. As for other global players, such as “Russia, China and India”, we have to “see how best to work with them”.
“We are very aware that things cannot go well for the Spanish inside if we do not do things well outside” and, therefore, Spain must work “with partners and allies” on issues such as climate change, security, pandemic and migration. “They expect leadership from Spain, a European, Mediterranean and transatlantic country with a global vocation”, he declared. “We must also present ourselves to the world as we are, a democratic country, with a rule of law and a decentralization that is almost unique in the world”, he concluded.
At the end of his speech, in which he had made no mention of the minister or the outgoing teams, Albares interrupted the inevitable applause to introduce a kind of postscript: “I did not want it to be part of the speech, but I want to make here, before everyone, my first appointment. I want Arancha González Laya to be my advisor, because you have done a lot for this Ministry and we have a lot to thank you for”. “My first honorary appointment is that I appoint you as my advisor”, he added, without further consequences.
Arancha González Laya
“Exactly 546 days ago I arrived in Spain and put myself at the service of the Spanish people after more than 20 years of international public service”, Arancha González Laya previously assured in her farewell speech. “Today I am leaving my post, but I remain firm in my vocation of public service”, she continued.
Her departure, she said, is “a bittersweet moment, sweet for the many achievements made in such a short period and weighed down by COVID“, such as the Next Generation funds, the lifting of US tariffs on Spanish products, the “principle of agreement on Gibraltar, which 300 years later represents a turning point in relations with the United Kingdom”; the policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean (with mention of the donor conference for Venezuelan refugees), the strategy in Africa, the “boosting of the southern neighborhood”, economic diplomacy, the holding of the next NATO summit in Spain, the “repatriation of 40,000 Spaniards during the pandemic”. 000 Spaniards during the pandemic”, the “vaccination of foreign personnel of the Ministry and other Ministries” and the “strategy of feminist diplomacy”, among others.
Besides, she continued, it is “a bitter moment because much remains to be done”, such as the reform of Development Cooperation, the new regulation of the diplomatic career or the “reestablishment of full relations with our neighbor and partner Morocco, from respect and responsibility”. At the end of her speech, the former minister declared that she was leaving behind her parliamentary appearances and “the media noise, generated not always with the best intentions”. In any case, she concluded, “the mistakes are mine alone, the achievements belong to this Ministry as a whole”.
