The Diplomat
The Second Vice President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, yesterday invited the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, to “promote common progressive agendas in international and Ibero-American forums.”
“We are opening a new stage in the relations between Spain and Colombia, a new stage between plural and diverse governments that have the duty to promote common progressive agendas in international and Ibero-American forums,” said Diaz during the presentation of Gustavo Petro’s speech at the New Economy Forum‘s information stand in Madrid.
According to the vice-president, the current governments of Spain and Colombia must also become “a bridge between Latin America and Europe” to help move towards “a democratic model of clean energy” through public-private collaboration, in order to “decarbonize” economies and transform production models. “It is possible, it is urgent and it is necessary,” she declared.
According to Yolanda Díaz, Petro’s government “drinks from feminist struggles”, is committed to the defense of the environment and human rights and will promote “an agrarian reform that includes the rights of farmers” and “a new social contract in line with the redistributive promises contained in the 1991 Constitution”, with a “tax reform so that Colombia finally has, now, fiscal justice and those who have more pay more”.
Díaz also praised the Colombian Executive for having made “total peace its banner”, because peace “cannot only be the absence of war”, but must exclude any violence against activists and trade unionists, be a guarantee of security for the majorities and make beauty and tranquility “a right of all”, and not “the exclusive patrimony of a few”. Shortly after, she assured Petro of his support “in all that is necessary to achieve total peace”.
During his speech, Gustavo Petro defended “a sustainable alliance between Europe and Latin America” based on clean energy and decarbonized economy and production. “The alliance that would be sustainable, profitable, in terms of CO2, is Europe-Latin America,” he said and, in that objective, “the role of Colombia and Spain and their relationship there is that, to make it transparent, to make it a reality; to put it into action”. “To set in motion a Europe-Latin America alliance based on clean energy and a decarbonized and productive economy, here and there, seems to me to be the objective of the relations to be built in these days and months,” the President declared.
For all these reasons, he said, the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, in the second half of this year, and the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which will take place in Brussels on July 17 and 18, can help to advance the relationship between the two regions, with “Spain and Colombia marking the coordination”.
On the other hand, Gustavo Petro harshly criticized the sanctions against Venezuela, which have caused “millions of people to be condemned to misery, to hunger literally” and has provoked the exodus of its citizens.
According to the president, “Venezuela and Colombia are practically one and the same people”, and, “at some point”, former US President Donald Trump considered the possibility of “invading Venezuela from Colombia, which would have been a historical catastrophe for us, because those events mark for a century or more”. “Fortunately, some Trump advisor advised him well and prevented that barbarity, but we would have had a few years ago a situation like the one you have here” with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, he continued. “What was left from that was the closing of the border, which is our biggest border and a situation of intense polarization between the two governments,” he lamented.
