Luis Ayllón
The President of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso, plans to make a working visit to Spain in early November, on his return from the Climate Summit to be held in Glasgow (Scotland), known as COP26, according to diplomatic sources, The Diplomat has learned.
Lasso took up his post on 24 May, at an event attended by His Majesty the King, representing Spain. Now, he will have the opportunity to meet again with Don Felipe and to go to the Moncloa Palace to meet with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
The COP26 meeting will begin on 1 November, and the exact dates of Lasso’s visit are not yet known. He may also make a private stopover in Madrid on his way from Quito to Glasgow.
In any case, it will be Lasso’s first visit to Spain since he assumed the Presidency of Ecuador, and, as he himself indicated in a statement to Agencia Efe last September, one of his objectives is to intensify “the Ecuadorian government’s relationship with the private sector and Spanish investors”. It is not ruled out, therefore, that he may have some contact with Spanish businessmen during his stay in Spain.
In this interview, Lasso recalled that his government has a “portfolio of nearly 30 billion dollars in investments in oil, mining, infrastructure, energy, telecommunications, which will be opportunities for Spanish companies to invest in Ecuador”.
When I visit Spain,” he assured, “I will give priority to contacts with the Spanish private sector, the investment sector, so that they can come to Ecuador and help us to promote development through public-private partnerships.
Another of the recurring issues in the visits made by Ecuadorian leaders to Spain is the situation of the more than 400,000 Ecuadorians who are estimated to live in our country, and who represent the third largest foreign community.
At the end of August, Pascual del Cioppo, whom Lasso had appointed as Ecuador’s ambassador in Madrid, was forced to resign from the post, which he had not even taken up, after some controversy from which it could be deduced that in previous years the embassy in Madrid had allegedly indirectly financed Podemos, through Kinema, in contracts to advise Ecuadorians on evictions in Spain.
Guillermo Lasso has not yet made public the name of the person he will now propose to take charge of the Embassy, and has limited himself to stating that he will send someone “who corresponds to the level of relationship so important that my government wants to maintain with Spain”.
