The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, received yesterday at La Moncloa Palace the head of the Government of Andorra, Xavier Espot, to whom he expressed his wish that the negotiations on the Association Agreement between the Principality and the EU have “a successful momentum” during the next Spanish Presidency of the EU Council.
During the meeting, Sánchez thanked Xavier Espot for his visit “as an expression of the fluid dialogue and the increasingly close relations existing between Spain and Andorra”, according to Moncloa in a press release. The two leaders had last met in April 2021, on the occasion of the XXVII Ibero-American Summit, held in Andorra. Spain is Andorra’s main trading partner. Moreover, of the 79,000 citizens residing in the Principality, 27,000 are Spanish.
Likewise, Pedro Sánchez reiterated Spain’s support for Andorra in its Association Agreement negotiations with the EU and expressed confidence that they can have “a successful boost” during the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU, in the second half of 2023. “The country counts on our support so that the negotiations on the Association Agreement with the EU move forward and can soon be successfully concluded,” the chief executive declared through his Twitter account.
On October 20, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, assured in Madrid during an official visit of his Andorran counterpart, Maria Ubach, that the negotiations for the Association Agreement between the Principality and the EU will be “a priority” of the Spanish Presidency. For her part, Ubach thanked Spain for its “continued support” in these negotiations, “a long and complex process” that constitutes a “priority for Andorra” because it “will allow it to participate in the EU’s internal market”.
Andorra and the EU have been negotiating, since 2015, the signing of a new Association Agreement that would allow the Principality to access the European Economic Area (EEA), the framework that brings together all EU member states and three of the four states of the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and that guarantees an internal market regulated by the same basic rules. The EU’s negotiations with Andorra are linked to those with two other small territorial states, Monaco and San Marino.
