Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will participate, between today and tomorrow, in the European Council in Brussels and, from tomorrow, Friday, until Saturday, in the Ibero-American Summit in Santo Domingo. In both meetings, the head of the Executive will try to serve as a bridge between the two regions, with the negotiations with Mercosur, the upcoming Spanish Presidency of the EU and the EU-CELAC Summit in July as main references.
Sánchez will arrive today in Brussels, where he will hold a working breakfast with the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo, as part of his European tour to prepare for the Spanish Presidency of the Council. Subsequently, he will participate, as a preamble to the Council, in a working lunch with the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, in which Ukraine, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate change will be discussed and in which the head of the Executive will address the latter issue at the request of President Charles Michel.
During these two days, the Council will discuss the EU’s response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine (after foreign ministers reached an agreement this past Monday for the joint purchase of ammunition), on Europe’s long-term strategy to boost competitiveness and productivity, on the energy issue – in which Spain will try, once again, to defend the reform of the electricity market in the hope that it can be completed before the end of this year – and on European financial capacities in the face of the current crisis in the US banking sector and in Credit Suisse, in this case during the Euro Summit that will close the Brussels meeting tomorrow.
Another important topic of the Council will be the strategic debate on the geopolitical aspects of the EU’s trade policy and on the reform of the EU’s economic governance framework. According to a Moncloa source, Spain’s purpose in this debate is to defend among the European partners the need to promote the negotiations for the conclusion of the trade agreements with Chile, Mexico and, above all, Mercosur. Regarding this last issue, the same sources trust that the meeting in Brussels will allow, at least, to sound out the sensitivities of the different European leaders and to know more clearly who are against it (the most obvious case is France) and what are their arguments for it (in the case of France, environmental protection).
Ibero-American Summit
Likewise, the aforementioned sources highlighted the fact that the European Council will be held immediately before the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will take place on March 24 and 25 in the Dominican Republic, which will allow to discuss with the leaders of both sides of the Atlantic not only the state of the negotiations between the EU and Mercosur but also the details of the next Summit between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which will take place in July in Brussels within the framework of the Spanish Presidency. In this regard, the same sources also highlighted the presence, for the first time, of the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, as a symptom of Europe’s desire to approach Ibero-America as an important strategic actor with its own voice in the world, a role in which, they assured, Spain can play a relevant role as a bridge between the two regions.
The Ibero-American Summit will begin tomorrow, Friday, with the XIV Ibero-American Business Meeting (which Pedro Sánchez will not be able to attend, but King Felipe VI and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, will be present) and with the opening ceremony, in which the President of the Government is expected to be present.
The Summit, as such, will take place on Saturday and will begin, as far as Spain is concerned, with a working breakfast of the President of the Government with the presidents of the Central American countries. Afterwards, the plenary session will begin, divided into two parts (morning and afternoon) and in which the leaders or their representatives will intervene to address, above all, four major regional issues: the Ibero-American Environmental Charter (in the drafting of which the Spanish delegation participated), the Ibero-American Charter of Principles and Digital Rights (supposedly inspired by the Spanish Charter of Digital Rights, according to Moncloa sources), the Strategy to achieve food security and the Special Communiqué on International Financial Architecture.
Between the two plenary sessions, a working lunch will be held with the Heads of State and Government, which will be dedicated to “fair and sustainable economic recovery” and in which Pedro Sánchez will have a brief intervention in which he will make a reference to the EU-CELAC Summit. The Summit will close with a series of national press conferences, starting at five o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday (five hours later in Spain).
Apart from this, and in the absence of new confirmations, Pedro Sánchez will hold bilateral meetings on Friday with the presidents of Costa Rica, Rodrigo Chaves, and Chile, Gabriel Boric, and on Saturday with Luis Abinader, the president of the host country, the Dominican Republic. At the moment, the presence of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is not absolutely certain (although it was initially announced), but, in any case, no meeting with him is foreseen.
Albares in Santo Domingo
For his part, José Manuel Albares begins his agenda in Santo Domingo today with a dinner offered by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic, Roberto Álvarez, to all the Ibero-American foreign ministers, which will be the prelude to the Meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers which begins on Friday. During that session, the minister will focus his speech on the importance of the relationship between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean and will urge his counterparts to take advantage of the opportunities that the Spanish Presidency of the EU will provide in the second half of 2023. According to the Ministry, Spain “will focus its efforts on attending to the needs of the Ibero-American community under the prism of the European Presidency”.
Regarding the parallel activities of the Summit, the Minister will be present at the Ibero-American Meeting of Young Leaders, will attend the XIV Ibero-American Business Meeting, where he plans to attend the discussion of Heads of State and Government in which the King will participate, and will attend the opening ceremony of the XXVII Ibero-American Summit.
