The Diplomat
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the United States, Joe Biden, briefly greeted each other again yesterday. On this occasion it was just before entering the plenary session on ‘Economy and global health’, in the framework of the G20 meeting, which is being held in Rome.
The video released by Moncloa shows the two leaders shaking hands and exchanging greetings for about 30 seconds, more or less the same amount of time as the walk they took in July during the NATO Summit in Brussels.
Pedro Sánchez and Joe Biden spoke on the phone last August, after the Taliban entered Kabul, to coordinate the evacuation of Afghans who had collaborated with Spain and the United States. Spain offered the Rota and Morón de la Frontera bases to evacuate people who had collaborated with the United States, as a stopover to be sent to the United States.
Afterwards, the video shows Sánchez greeting Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan. Earlier, in the family photo, he greeted acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the prime ministers of India, Narendra Modi, and Canada, Justin Trudeau, and the president of the World Bank, David Malpass.
During the plenary meeting, the head of the Spanish government announced an increase in Spain’s planned donation of vaccines against the coronavirus, which will reach 50 million doses in the first quarter of 2022, according to the First Vice-President and Minister of Economic Affairs, Nadia Calviño, who told journalists.
Spain has been gradually increasing its donation of vaccines to the Covax mechanism and in September the commitment was that in the first quarter of 2022 it would reach 30 million doses, most of them destined for Latin American countries.
A further 20 million doses have now been announced, which, according to Calviño, means that each Spaniard will have donated more than one vaccine to the most vulnerable countries.
Before the plenary meeting, Sánchez held an informal bilateral meeting with the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva.
According to Moncloa sources, Georgieva framed the inflationary tensions that have hit the euro area in a temporary context and, therefore, as a transitory factor, although she did not set a deadline for their conclusion. Moreover, according to the same sources, the IMF would have full confidence in the government’s recovery plans.
Sánchez also took part in another bilateral meeting with the director general of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in which they discussed issues such as climate change, the advance of the pandemic and the need to promote free trade.ç
After the plenary session, the President of the Government held meetings with Trudeau, with the new Secretary General of the OECD, Mathias Corman, with the President of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, and with the Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison.
Finally, he took part in a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit, which was held at the French embassy in Italy, organised by French President Emmanuel Macron, to discuss the EU’s new European Pact on Migration and Asylum. It was attended by several EU and African heads of government.
