The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, warned yesterday that the war in Ukraine “will last many years” and is going to produce a “serious food crisis” that will affect, above all, the countries of North Africa and the Sahel.
“It will last many years, it is the war of one man, Vladimir Putin, and we have to guarantee not only the integrity of Ukraine but of some values, of democracy,” said the minister during his participation in the meeting New times, the world to come, a colloquium of Foros de Vanguardia organized by the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia in Barcelona.
“The Russian aggression is shaping a new world, there is a struggle between the democratic and authoritarian models,” said Albares. For this reason, European and transatlantic partners must continue to bet on “unity” in the face of Russia, the same unity that, he warned, there should also be “among the political forces within Spain”.
According to the minister, this war is already causing a “serious food crisis” that will last “years, even longer than the war”, because it is affecting the production and price of cereals and the price of fertilizers. For example, he explained, 80% of the grain Egypt needs comes from Russia and also from Ukraine. Therefore, he warned, it is very likely that “very soon we will see serious food security problems”, especially in regions such as the Maghreb or the Sahel. In addition, once the war is over, it will still “take time” before the fields “become operational again”.
For this reason, Albares strongly criticized the “completely wrong response” that some countries are giving to this situation, betting on “protectionism” and the closure of markets to prevent their cereals to go abroad, and warned of the need to seek ways for the contingent of grain currently trapped in Ukraine to go abroad, a measure that, in any case, would only serve to “delay the crisis”.
The Minister also mentioned the importance of the NATO Summit, to be held at the end of June in Madrid, at which “a forceful response to the challenge that Russia represents, not only for Ukraine, but also for the model of life that has given us decades of peace and prosperity” should emerge, and which should also address, in the “strategic document to be approved”, the threats coming from the Southern Flank, especially from the Sahel, which has become the “epicenter” of terrorist activity.
