The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, will meet on September 21 during their participation in the forum Latin America, the United States and Spain in the global economy, which will take place in New York within the framework of the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations.
The meeting, organized by the newspaper El País and the Spain-U.S. Chamber of Commerce with the support of the Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI), will be attended by Pedro Sánchez, Gustavo Petro, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares; the President of the Spain-U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Alan Solomont; the U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, José W. Fernández; and the Secretary General of the OEI. Fernández; and the secretary general of OEI, Mariano Jabonero, among others, according to the OEI in a press release.
The objective of the forum is “to debate the challenges that the new economic situation demands for relations between Latin American countries, the United States and Spain, an economic triangle of great importance due to their historical and cultural relations”. During the conference, which will consist of different conferences with different political and business leaders from Spain, Latin America and the United States, the challenges to find new ways and opportunities for growth and, above all, a vision of the future in the development of global markets and trade relations will be put on the table.
According to the OEI’s Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship in Latin America and the Caribbean report, published last May, 80% of young people in the eleven countries analyzed in the study have profiles that are incompatible with the most competitive jobs. The report also highlights that, due to the pandemic, young people in the region are facing serious problems of labor market insertion, with the lowest participation rates compared to the average population, and also unemployment, to the point of reaching the highest figure since records have been kept.
Pedro Sánchez was received in Bogotá by Gustavo Petro on August 24, in the first stage of a tour that included Ecuador and Honduras. The head of the Executive has already expressed to Petro, who took office on August 7, Spain’s willingness to host the peace negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, which began this summer in Havana. The President thanked Spain for its offer, but warned that the guerrilla leaders should be the ones to propose the venue for the talks. The Spanish offer has little chance of going through and everything points to Cuba, where prominent guerrilla leaders live and where the talks with the FARC were held.
