The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, received yesterday the Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez Blanco, at the Ministry’s headquarters in Marqués de Salamanca in order to address strategic issues of the bilateral agenda and strengthen economic and trade relations.
During the meeting, Albares and Ramírez -who traveled to Spain to participate in the fifth edition of the Colombia Investment Roadshow Madrid 2022- agreed on the need to enhance bilateral relations through the activation of the High Level Commission and the Colombian minister “made special emphasis on the importance of holding the first meeting, which has been proposed for this May in Bogotá”, as reported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the South American country in a press release. The Commission was created in Madrid in September 2021 under the 1992 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation and has five subcommissions in the political, economic and commercial, scientific and technological, educational and cultural, and legal and consular fields.
The two ministers also expressed their satisfaction with the completion of negotiations and the signing in 2021 of important bilateral instruments, such as the Agreement on the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments, the Agreement on Cooperation in the Fight against Crime and Security and the Agreement on the Protection of Classified Information.
On the other hand, Ramírez thanked “Spain’s constant support to Colombia in the face of the different challenges faced by the country” and highlighted, in this sense, the donation of more than 6.5 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19, of which more than 2.6 million have been received. The Vice President and Chancellor also thanked Spain for its support for the implementation of the Policy of Peace with Legality through the United Nations Multi-Donor Fund, the European Fund for Peace and the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID).
