The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, yesterday took advantage of his participation in the second Summit of the European Political Community (EPC), which brought together 47 European leaders in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau, to announce that the next meeting of the EPC will be held on October 5 in Granada and to express his support, in the presence of the Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelenski, for the proposals to extend the Mediterranean Transport Corridor from Spain to Ukraine.
The Summit, an initiative launched in 2022 by French President Emmanuel Macron to strengthen cooperation and partnership between all countries of the continent, brought together the leaders of the 27 EU countries and twenty other European countries, such as Armenia, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, Serbia or Azerbaijan. The meeting was also attended by the presidents of the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament, Charles Michel, Ursula von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola, respectively, and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, Josep Borrell. The first Summit was held in October 2022 in Prague.
“Spain will host the next summit of the European Political Community, a responsibility that we take very seriously in order to continue strengthening ties and unity,” announced Pedro Sánchez during the institutional declaration offered at the end of the meeting by the President of the Government (in his capacity as the next President of the EU Council), the President of Moldova, Maia Sandu, and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala (the last organizer of the EPC). The third Summit, he said, will be held on October 5 in Granada, coinciding with the Spanish Presidency.
The Chisinau meeting dealt mainly with three topics, security, energy and connectivity, through four simultaneous round tables. On security, the leaders placed special emphasis on hybrid threats and nuclear security in Ukraine and took advantage of Zelenski’s presence at this Summit to reiterate support for the Ukrainian people in the face of Russian aggression and to stress the need to work towards building a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.
Pedro Sánchez and Maia Sandu co-chaired one of the tables dedicated to energy and connectivity issues. In this meeting, as reported by Moncloa, the President of the Government stressed the importance of energy interconnections to develop the European electricity market, ensure supply and encourage the deployment of renewables and recalled, in this regard, the forthcoming launch of the H2MED hydrogen corridor between Spain, Portugal and France.
With regard to transport infrastructure, Pedro Sánchez warned of the importance of investing in efficient transport networks to support economic growth, favor access to greater economic opportunities and improve the resilience of global supply chains, and therefore highlighted the proposals to extend the Mediterranean corridor from Spain to Ukraine or the recent projects to adapt the railway infrastructure of Eastern Europe. The Mediterranean Corridor is part of the Trans-European Railway Network and crosses six European Union countries, (Spain, France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary).
Bilateral meetings
In the margins of this Summit, Sánchez held a bilateral meeting with Volodimir Zelenski, to whom he expressed his interest in the current situation in the country and to whom he conveyed Spain’s unanimous condemnation of this aggression and our country’s support for the Ukrainian people.
Pedro Sánchez also met with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, to whom he conveyed his willingness to continue to support fluidity and dialogue between the two countries; with the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, with whom he discussed the Dutch position on the main issues of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU; and with the President of the Swiss Confederation, Alain Berset, with whom he agreed on the importance of continuing to strengthen ties to enhance economic ties.
