The Diplomat
The Government assures that Pedro Sánchez spoke with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, during the NATO Summit in Brussels on 14 June about security and defence, the situation in Latin America and the progressive policies of the new US Administration.
This is stated in a written reply to the questions posed by the deputies of the Popular Group Valentina Martínez Ferro, Pablo Hispán and Marta González Vázquez, after the Executive announced that the President of the Government was going to hold a meeting with Biden in the margins of the NATO Summit.
Specifically, the MPs asked why the meeting was not on Biden’s agenda, as was the case with the heads of government of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, and whether it was going to be a “brief meeting of little importance, contrary to what has been said in recent days from Moncloa, rather than a bilateral meeting”.
The only images released of a meeting between Biden and Sánchez were of a 29-second walk through the corridors of the summit venue, in which they are seen talking. Despite this, Moncloa later claimed that there had been another contact without cameras in the hall where the summit plenary took place.
The response given by the Executive to the questions from the Popular MPs begins by indicating that ‘President Biden’s official agenda only included the bilateral meetings themselves, not the separate meetings of a more informal nature that the US President held in the margins of the NATO Summit with the President of the Government and with a series of international leaders, including the presidents of Slovakia and Bulgaria, as well as the prime ministers of Montenegro, Norway, Portugal and Luxembourg’.
“The meeting in the margins of the NATO summit on 14 June was a first contact with Resident Biden, which was particularly warm and friendly, in keeping with the good relationship that exists between Spain and the United States”, adds the reply, which also points out that the meeting “served the purpose of both leaders getting to know each other personally and engaging in an initial conversation”.
The government does not provide the duration of the meeting, but says that it ‘mainly addressed three issues that the Prime Minister wanted to highlight: security and defence ties, the situation in Latin America and the progressive policies implemented by the Biden Administration’.
