The Diplomat
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares met yesterday with Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Bali (Indonesia). The meeting took place days after the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, declared that in Spain there is still “Francoism without Franco”.
“Very good meeting with the Chancellor of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard, to prepare the Spain-Mexico Binational Commission,” Albares declared through his official Twitter account. “We also talked about the EU-Mexico Global Agreement, the Spanish Presidency of the EU, the Ibero-American Community of Nations and the regional situation in Latin America,” he added.
Foreign sources consulted by The Diplomat could not provide other details. Nor did they clarify whether during the meeting the recent declarations of López Obrador were addressed, who last Thursday, during his usual press conference, affirmed that, “in spite of the changes that took place in recent times in Spain, the Monclova Pact (sic) and the advance of democracy”, the Spaniards “maintained Francoism without Franco, and that does not help”.
These statements only fuel the controversy between the Spanish government and López Obrador, whose arrival as Mexican head of state in 2018 marked a turning point in relations with Spain because of his criticism of Spain’s colonial legacy and his repeated demands for Spain to apologize for it. Last February, López Obrador even proposed a “pause” in relations with Spain to turn the page on a stage in which, in his opinion, Spanish authorities and companies took advantage of his country. More than 200,000 Spaniards live in Mexico and 7,000 Spanish companies operate in the country, employing 300,000 Mexicans.
López Obrador’s statements were rejected by the Spanish government, which has attributed these criticisms to “internal debates” in Mexico and tried to redirect relations by sending Albares to Mexico City on March 9. In fact, the delay, on the part of the Government of Pedro Sanchez in granting the certificate to the ambassador in Madrid, Quirino Ordaz (in office since April), was interpreted as a sign of Spanish anger at Lopez Obrador’s continuous verbal attacks on Spain.
Marcelo Ebrard is representing his country at the G20 Summit, replacing López Obrador, who does not usually attend this event. The other foreign minister replacing his president, in this case Jair Bolsonaro, is Brazil’s Ernesto Araújo. It so happens that both Ebrard and Araújo have been placed at the Summit, one on each side, next to the Russian Foreign Minister, Serguei Lavrov, who is in Bali replacing President Vladimir Putin. Indonesian authorities have done everything necessary to prevent the Russian representative from sitting or appearing in photographs with Western representatives.
