The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, received yesterday at the Moncloa Palace the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to whom he conveyed Spain’s support to the efforts made by the UN to put an end to the war in Ukraine and to alleviate the situation of world food insecurity caused by the Russian aggression.
During the meeting, Pedro Sánchez also reaffirmed Spain’s commitment to the Sustainable Development Summit to be held in September, which will coincide with Spain’s Presidency of the EU Council. Sánchez and Guterres also discussed the situation in Sudan, Western Sahara, Libya, the Middle East and Haiti, according to Moncloa in a press release.
Guterres arrived yesterday in Spain to collect the Charles V European Award at the Monastery of San Jerónimo de Yuste (Cáceres). For that reason, the UN Secretary General attended last night, at the same Monastery of Yuste, a dinner presided over by King Felipe VI, and in which the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa; the Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, were also present.
The award ceremony of the XVI edition of the award will take place today on the occasion of Europe Day, and will be presided over by Felipe VI, honorary president of the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation. The ceremony will be attended by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, António Costa, José Manuel Albares, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell; the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles; the President of the General Council of the Judiciary, Rafael Mozo; the Ibero-American Secretary General, Andrés Allamand, and the President of the Regional Government of Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara. Ambassadors from various countries will also attend.
This is the third time that the Charles V European Award has gone to a Portuguese politician. On the two previous occasions, the winners were José Manuel Durão Barroso (2014) and Jorge Fernando Branco de Sampaio (2004). Guterres, UN secretary-general since 2017, was prime minister of Portugal between 1995 and 2002.
The jury of the 16th edition of the Charles V European Award has highlighted Guterres’ work at the head of the international organization in driving “actions to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, to the war in Ukraine, to address the climate emergency and to achieve ambitious reforms with which to face the challenges of the 21st century.” He also emphasized the determination shown by the Secretary General of the United Nations to fight climate change by promoting “sustainable development and placing the 2030 Agenda as the global roadmap focused on people and the planet”.
Since 1995, the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation has been presenting the Charles V European Award to those people, organizations, projects or initiatives that, through their efforts and dedication, have contributed to the general knowledge and enhancement of the cultural, social, scientific and historical values of Europe, as well as to the process of European construction and integration.
The persons awarded so far with this prize have been Jacques Delors (1995), Wilfried Martens (1998), Felipe González (2000), Mikhail Gorbachev (2002), Jorge Sampaio (2004), Helmut Kohl (2006), Simone Veil (2008), Javier Solana (2011), José Manuel Durão Barroso (2014), Sofia Corradi (2016), Marcelino Oreja Aguirre (2017), Antonio Tajani (2018), the Council of Europe’s Cultural Itineraries project (2019), Angela Merkel (2021) and the European Disability Forum (2022).
