The Diplomat
The President of Costa Rica, Carlos Alvarado, described yesterday in Madrid as “absolutely unacceptable” the political situation in Nicaragua and warned that “democracies must be forceful” with the regime of Daniel Ortega but “those who have to take the baton of transformation are the Nicaraguans themselves”.
The Costa Rican president made yesterday an official visit to Spain as part of a European tour that also includes France. Carlos Alvarado will be back in his country on April 2, which will allow him to vote in the second round of the presidential elections, to be held the following day. In compliance with the Constitution, Alvarado – Costa Rica’s 48th president since 2018 – will not be eligible for re-election, so he will have to cede the presidency, next May 8, to the winner of the elections.
The president’s day began with an informative event organized by the Europa Press agency, introduced by the third vice-president of the Government and minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Pilar Ribera, who praised Costa Rica’s commitment in favor of “a different reality in which the surroundings, the environment, becomes capital and progress for all”.
At the meeting, Alvarado thanked the Spanish Government for its role during the COVID-19 pandemic and recalled that Spain was the country that donated the most vaccines to Costa Rica. He also highlighted “the joint work that, for three years now, the two countries have been carrying out against climate change” and warned that the “invasion of Ukraine by Russia has a severe impact on Latin America and the whole world, starting with the rise in fuel prices”. “We have a lethal addiction to fossil fuels and we have to get out of this dependence,” he declared. “The war is diverting us from what we agreed to save the planet. It may be that in the future, oil and everything that revolves around it may mean the death of the planet,” he warned.
Asked about the situation in Nicaragua and about the massive arrival of migrants from that country (about half a million Nicaraguans reside in Costa Rica, 100,000 of whom have arrived since April 2018 because of the political crisis and repression), Carlos Alvarado said that the situation under the regime of Daniel Ortega is “absolutely unacceptable”. Democratic institutions, he denounced, have been “progressively eroded, destroyed; that no longer has any traces of democracy”. “We have the entire Nicaraguan opposition imprisoned before last year’s elections, elections that were not transparent,” he added.
Therefore, according to Alvarado, the international community must “channel” this situation “through dialogue and elections” and “it is the duty of democracies to be forceful and say, from a principled perspective, what is correct and what is not”. However, he said, “the countries can only accompany” the process, because “those who have to take the baton of the transformation are the Nicaraguans themselves”.
The King and Pedro Sánchez
After this act, President Alvarado was received by King Philip VI at the Zarzuela Palace, in a meeting attended by José Manuel Albares, Minister of Foreign Affairs; María Cristina Pérez, Spanish Ambassador to Costa Rica; Rodolfo Solano, Costa Rican Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship; and Ana Helena Chacón, Costa Rican Ambassador to Spain. Later, the King and Queen of Spain hosted a lunch in honor of Carlos Alvarado and the First Lady, Claudia Dobles, at the Royal Palace in Madrid, which was also attended by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
During the lunch, Philip VI gave a speech in which he stated that the two countries share “profound democratic values, freedom, respect for human rights and a peaceful, multilateral and rules-based international order.” “Spain recognizes itself in Costa Rica’s defense of democratic institutions and the rule of law,” said the monarch, who also expressed Spain’s willingness to “continue actively supporting the Central American region in responding to the important challenges it faces.” “Cooperation among Central American countries and greater regional integration are the best ways to achieve new successes in this direction,” he added.
For his part, Carlos Alvarado again thanked Spain for its support to COVID-19 and praised the presence of Spanish companies in Costa Rica and their impact on the “social development” of the country, mainly in the infrastructure and tourism sectors. He also highlighted the development of “a new industry, the production of green hydrogen”, in a country where 99.5 percent of the energy is clean and renewable.
In the afternoon, the President of Costa Rica was received at La Moncloa Palace by Pedro Sánchez, with whom he discussed bilateral collaboration in the areas of tourism, cybersecurity, infrastructure, sports diplomacy and entrepreneurship. During the meeting, two agreements were signed: a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Spain Entrepreneurial Nation, by the High Commissioner for Spain Entrepreneurial Nation, and a letter of intent to advance the bilateral agreement on social security, signed by the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá. Sánchez and Alvarado also agreed on a Joint Declaration in which they expressed their “firm condemnation of the use of force and the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” and demanded the immediate cessation of hostilities.
