The Diplomat
The former vice-president of the Spanish government, Pablo Iglesias, has lashed out against the Latin American policy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who he says is “much more like a PP minister”.
In a video for an analysis column in the Argentinian media ‘C5N’, which Iglesias himself has shared on social networks, he claims that “the Latin American left with government responsibilities looks with suspicion and distrust at a Spanish government whose foreign policy in Latin America is difficult to differentiate from what the right would do”.
For Iglesias, Albares’ management weakens Spain’s position in Latin America, where “its role is less and less understood”. “We have no role in the Colombian peace process or in the talks between the ruling party and the opposition in Venezuela”, he says.
According to the former vice-president, “one would expect a coherent foreign policy from a progressive government like the one headed by Pedro Sánchez“, despite the fact that “there are those who rightly say that the Foreign Ministry is a private and impermeable terrain of the PSOE, which will never assume the positions of Unidas Podemos” in this area.
Unidas Podemos, whose links with the Bolivarian left are well known, has tried to have greater weight in the current government’s policy towards Latin America. In fact, when the King travelled to the inauguration of Luis Arce as President of Bolivia in November 2020, Iglesias managed to be included in the entourage, despite the misgivings of the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, and developed an agenda parallel to that of the King. In the Bolivian capital, together with other leaders of the left – including former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – he signed the so-called ‘Declaration of La Paz’ against ‘the coup d’état of the ultra-right’.
In addition, Podemos tried to place a person they trusted as Spanish ambassador to Argentina, but the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, did not agree to their demands, and has chosen to appoint María Jesús Alonso, a career diplomat with extensive professional experience.
In his intervention on C5N, Iglesias continued his criticism of Albares by stressing that it is “implausible” that the current foreign minister “belongs to the same party” as Rodríguez Zapatero, whom he said “has not stopped demonstrating his commitment to and knowledge” of Latin America. “On the contrary, the Foreign Minister is much more like any PP Foreign Minister than Miguel Ángel Moratinos”, he said, describing the former Foreign Minister under Zapatero as one of the “most prestigious diplomats”.
Furthermore, Iglesias points out that Albares, who was ambassador to France, ‘had to return almost on the run when Morocco demanded the head of the previous foreign minister (Arancha González Laya) for having provided medical care to a Sahrawi Polisario leader with Spanish nationality’, alluding to the diplomatic crisis that broke out with Morocco after Brahim Gali was hospitalised in Logroño. The former vice-president claims that Albares was “considered from the beginning to be the best foreign minister for Morocco”.
In the same way, he also reproaches him for recently awarding the Order of Isabel la Católica to Colombian President Iván Duque, something that provoked the “protests” of Unidas Podemos, “perplexed” by decorating “one of the main saboteurs” of the peace process in Colombia. He also questions the attitude of the Foreign Ministry to the act in support of the peace treaties in Colombia, which was attended by Zapatero and the Minister for Social Rights, Ione Belarra.
T
