The Diplomat
The President of Angola, Joao Lourenço, visited the Moncloa Palace yesterday, where he was received by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, with whom he held a conversation in which they discussed the state of bilateral relations. Sánchez also praised Lourenço’s efforts in the search for solutions for peace and stability in his African region.
Joao Lourenço travelled to Spain last Tuesday to inaugurate, together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, the high-level conference on the Global Impact of Vaccination organised by the GAVI Alliance.
Moncloa described as “excellent” the bilateral relations and the work that Angol is carrying out by sending troops to facilitate stability in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in this African sub-region. Since 1998, eastern DRC has been mired in a conflict fuelled by rebel militias and the army despite the presence of the UN mission.
In their conversation, Sánchez and Lourenço, in addition to discussing Spain’s Presidency of the European Union, which will begin on 1 July, reviewed the state of relations between Spain and Angola, which have intensified considerably in recent years, with special emphasis on the economic component.
Exchanges of high-level visits between Madrid and Luanda have been very intense recently, to the point that in April 2021, the head of the Spanish Executive travelled to the African country and, just a few months later, the Angolan leader made an official visit to Spain. And if in Sánchez’s visit to Luanda, Angola granted Spain the role of preferential partner in the European Union in its process of diversification of the country’s economy, in Lourenço’s visit to Madrid, the two countries signed a declaration in which they advocated facilitating Spanish investments in the African country.
Furthermore, just a few months ago, in February of this year, the King and Queen chose Angola for their first state visit to a sub-Saharan African country.
