The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, held a working meeting yesterday with the President of La Rioja, Concepción Andreu, to discuss the launch of the Global Observatory of Spanish, an inter-ministerial body based in La Rioja that will serve as a guide to the Instituto Cervantes for the promotion of the language in the world and which will be chaired by the head of Spanish diplomacy himself.
“The president of the Government of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, met this Thursday in Madrid with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation and president of the Global Observatory of Spanish, José Manuel Albares, to advance the implementation of this national body, which will be located in La Rioja,” reported the regional executive in a press release. “The meeting is part of the development process of the agreement to be signed soon by both administrations for the entry into operation of the Observatory and has served to analyze lines of action and determine next steps,” it added. The meeting took place at the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“I have received the president of La Rioja, Concha Andreu, to address the implementation of the Global Observatory of Spanish, which will be based in La Rioja,” said the minister through his official Twitter account. “We promote the potential of Spanish as a driver of economic growth and digital transformation,” he added. “I have met with Minister Albares to analyze lines of action and determine next steps for the implementation of the Global Observatory of Spanish,” Andreu stated through the same social network. “From La Rioja we are working to promote the new economy of the Spanish language,” she added.
The Observatory, which was approved last June 7 by the Council of Ministers at the proposal of the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, will report to the Instituto Cervantes, whose director, Luis García Montero (who also attended yesterday’s meeting), will chair the permanent executive committee. Under the leadership of the Institute, the Observatory will be responsible for analyzing the situation of Spanish and the co-official languages in the world, particularly in the new digital economy; promoting the knowledge and prestige of the Hispanic language and cultures; coordinating the actions of the Spanish observatories located in different countries; and developing studies and making proposals of great value to make the language a driving force for economic growth.
The Observatory is the second initiative to be launched within the framework of the Strategic Project for the Recovery and Economic Transformation (PERTE) of the New Economy of the Language, after the promotion of the creation of broad linguistic corpora for Artificial Intelligence through the Royal Spanish Academy and the National Supercomputing Center. The Observatory will be chaired by Albares and will include representatives from the Ministries of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Education and Vocational Training, Culture and Sport, and Science and Innovation, in addition to the Government of the Community of La Rioja, where its headquarters will be located.
The PERTE New Economy of the Language, which includes the Global Observatory of Spanish, was approved on March 1 by the Council of Ministers with the aim of promoting the use of Spanish in artificial intelligence, science and culture, and encouraging its teaching and learning. It has a budget of 1.1 billion euros of public investment, of which at least 30 million will be earmarked exclusively to support projects in co-official languages. The former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Ibero-America, Cristina Gallach, is the Special Commissioner for the Alliance for a New Economy of the Language.
Albares and Andreu held two other meetings during 2021, the first in Madrid in September and the second in Logroño in December, with the aim of jointly promoting the Language Valley initiative, one of the strategic projects that form the backbone of the Transformation Plan of La Rioja and whose objective is to promote the language as an element of development and tourist attraction. The President of La Rioja had already discussed this initiative in June 2021 with Albares’ predecessor, Arancha González Laya, but that meeting took place just two weeks before the ministerial handover.
