The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, announced yesterday that Valencia will host next October, within the framework of the Spanish Presidency of the EU, the European Trade Council and the Summit between the EU and the Balkans.
Albares made this announcement during a breakfast briefing organized by the newspaper Las Provincias in Valencia, a day after participating in this same city in the trilateral meeting with his counterparts from Romania, Bogdan Aurescu, and Poland, Zbigniew Rau, a meeting that is intended to be held periodically and that, according to the minister, “will go down in history” with the name of ‘Trio of Valencia’.
According to Albares, Spain “has a very solid relationship with the countries of the Mediterranean” and the city of Valencia itself, “one of the great capitals of the Mediterranean, a city that welcomes the outside world”, is going to be “at the center with top-level meetings” during the Spanish Presidency. “We are redesigning the world in which we are going to live and it is important that Valencia and Spain are actors and not mere spectators of international politics,” he added.
In this regard, he announced that Valencia will host the Foreign Trade Council on 19 and 20 October, “one of the fundamental European councils of the Spanish Presidency of the EU” and in which “fundamental decisions will be taken on a policy that is completely communitised”. “Valencia has been chosen because of the vision that all Spaniards recognize in Valencians to look outwards and also to attract more and more foreign investment,” he added.
Likewise, he continued, Valencia will host the EU-Balkans Summit, probably also in October. Last Monday, during the working lunch between the EU Foreign Ministers and their counterparts from the Western Balkans (held in Brussels, in the framework of the Foreign Affairs Council), Albares presented “the proposal to hold, during the Spanish Presidency, a meeting in Spain with the Foreign Ministers of the Western Balkans to address the EU-Western Balkans agenda”, as he stated at a press conference. The head of Spanish diplomacy had already announced this initiative during his recent three-day tour of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and North Macedonia.
