Eduardo González
The Council of Ministers yesterday authorized the signing of the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and France and the Treaty of Cooperation between the two countries on Defense, two important bilateral agreements that will be signed tomorrow in Barcelona on the occasion of the celebration of the XXVII Spanish-French Summit.
The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the Kingdom of Spain and the French Republic was negotiated by the two governments in compliance with what was agreed at the XXVI Hispano-French Summit, held in the French town of Montauban on March 15, 2021 and in whose Joint Declaration the two countries (headed by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron) committed to “initiate the necessary work for the signing of a bilateral Franco-Spanish cooperation treaty”.
The aim of this treaty, “the first of this nature and dimension between the two parties”, is to “systematize and institutionalize the bilateral relationship with France” and establish a framework for the bilateral relationship “not only as neighboring countries, but as member states of the European Union and allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”, the Government stressed yesterday.
Among the aims of the treaty, set out in the preamble, are the deepening of cooperation and strategic coordination, including cross-border cooperation, and the development of a common framework in international relations whose pillars will be “the common commitment to European construction embodied by the EU”, the “Atlantic vocation”, relations with Africa, the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific and the “defense of multilateralism based on the central role of the United Nations”.
Likewise, the text establishes the European concertation between the parties and “the commitment for an active participation in the EU” and, in the field of foreign, security and defense policy, it includes for the first time the creation of a Franco-Spanish Defense and Security Council made up of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense of the parties, which will meet annually to examine foreign policy issues and the progress in the field of Defense and Security policy.
The treaty also establishes cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs (including the creation of a Franco-Spanish working group on migration issues), provides for annual consultations between the Ministers of Culture of the two countries and regular meetings between the Ministers of Economy, Industry, Connectivity and Tourism, and promotes the annual organization of a bilateral economic and business forum.
The text also establishes the will of both countries to increase their fight against global warming, protect their common environmental heritage and accelerate the transition to renewable energies and reaffirms the commitment of Spain and France in favor of the development of interconnections between both countries (the two governments presented last December the H2Med energy interconnection project, the first great green corridor that will connect the Iberian Peninsula with France and the rest of Europe and that will be operational in 2030), the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy. The rest of the treaty includes provisions on cooperation in health, labor and social affairs and develops the mechanisms and objectives of cross-border cooperation, including the creation of a consultative Border Cooperation Committee.
Defense Treaty
On the other hand, the Council of Ministers also authorized yesterday the signature of the Cooperation Treaty in the field of Defense between Spain and France, in compliance with the commitment assumed by the two governments at the Montauban summit to revise the Cooperation Agreement in the field of Defense signed by both countries on October 7, 1983. With this objective, the Spanish Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, and her then French counterpart, Florence Parly (who was replaced two months later by the current Minister, Sébastien Lecornu), agreed on March 28, 2022 to draft a new text that would cover the Security and Defense relations between both countries, formalized in a new cooperation treaty whose signature will also take place tomorrow in Barcelona.
According to the Government, the new treaty fulfills a double objective: it contributes significantly to strengthen and extend to new areas the cooperation in Defense matters between Spain and France and contemplates the new situation of the closest strategic environment, very degraded after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “establishing a powerful and renewed commitment with the European security and stability in a wide bilateral and multilateral framework hand in hand with the European Union and the Atlantic Alliance”.
Barcelona Summit
Both treaties will be signed tomorrow during the Spanish-French Summit, which will be attended by a large number of ministers from both countries. This is the first Spanish-French Summit to be held in Barcelona since the institutionalization of this type of meeting in 1987 and the second in Catalonia, after the one held in Girona in 2006. The organization of this edition corresponds to Spain, after it was held in Montauban, near Toulouse, in 2021. The last edition on Spanish soil took place in Malaga in 2017, between François Hollande and Mariano Rajoy.
The Summit could be marked by the appeal made, via Twitter, by the former president of the Catalan Generalitat Carles Puigdemont, in which he urged the Catalans to mobilize during the bilateral meeting “to defend the country from deluded undertakers”.
