The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will do his best to recover part of the agenda in New York that he was forced to suspend or modify because of his trip to the Canary Island of La Palma to follow closely the operations after the eruption of the volcano.
Diplomatic sources assured yesterday, during an informal meeting with Spanish correspondents and journalists displaced to New York on the occasion of the United Nations Ministerial Week, that the head of the Executive could leave today from the Canary Islands to the American city with the objective of being able to intervene this Thursday before the UN General Assembly and to recover part of the agenda, including the bilateral meeting with the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson (which was foreseen for yesterday, Monday).
However, everything depends on how the situation in the Canary Islands evolves, according to the same sources quoted by the news agencies. Sánchez “is where he has to be, next to the Spaniards who are being evacuated from the island of La Palma and taking the pulse of the situation to be able to make the best decisions” and, therefore, “the President’s priority is La Palma”, they warned.
Whatever happens, Moncloa is aware that it will not be possible to organize in just a day and a half all the agenda planned for four days, so it will be complicated to hold bilateral meetings with the presidents of Ecuador and Bolivia, Guillermo Lasso and Luis Arce, or with the emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al Zani. For the moment, an event promoted by the businessman Michael Bloomberg, scheduled for yesterday, in which Sánchez was going to present to American investors the opportunities offered by Spain with its Recovery Plan, has already been suspended.
Obviously, Sánchez will not arrive in time to attend the opening of the 76th session of the General Assembly, which will take place today and in which the President of the United States, Joe Biden, among others, will speak, nor the colloquium organized by the President of the European Council, Charles Michelle, on women in conflict, which will focus especially on Afghanistan.
On the other hand, if he finally leaves today, apart from guaranteeing his participation in the General Assembly on Thursday afternoon (local time), the head of the Executive could still save his presence in an event promoted by Spain on multilateralism and fair recovery at the Cervantes Institute in New York and in a debate forum on Latin America and the Caribbean at the Council of Americas.
Pending what may happen, part of Sanchez’s agenda has been assumed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who has been in New York since Sunday and who yesterday replaced the head of the Executive in his interview with the UN Secretary General, Antònio Guterres. “I have conveyed to the UN Secretary General that he can count on Spain for the solution of global problems and in crises such as the one in Afghanistan during the meeting, which the President of the Government was initially going to attend,” Albares declared on his Twitter account.
In any case, Albares also has his own agenda, which includes, as the most appetizing dish, a videoconference meeting with his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Burita (in the midst of a thaw after the serious diplomatic crisis of a few months ago). Apart from that, the head of diplomacy attended yesterday the ceremony for the anniversary of 9/11 at the Ground Zero Memorial in New York, organized by the Spanish Embassy in the United States, and met with the EU Foreign Ministers at the Delegation of the European Union to the United Nations in New York. He could also participate today, in Sanchez’s place, in a panel organized by the think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
In any case, Albares also has his own agenda, which includes, as the most appetizing dish, a videoconference meeting with his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Burita (in the midst of a thaw after the serious diplomatic crisis of a few months ago). Apart from that, the head of diplomacy met yesterday with EU foreign ministers at the European Union Delegation to the United Nations in New York and could participate today, instead of Sánchez, in a panel organized by the think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
