Eduardo González
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will travel to Egypt on Friday as part of the tour he will make of the Middle East starting tomorrow, Thursday, together with the Prime Minister of Belgium, Alexander de Croo.
According to Moncloa sources, Sanchez and De Croo will meet in Cairo with the President of Egypt, Abdel Fatah al Sisi, and with the Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Abul Gheit. The day before, the two European leaders will be received by the President and Prime Minister of Israel, Isaac Herzog and Benjamin Netanyahu, and by the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmud Abbas.
According to Moncloa’s official account on the social network X, the talks will focus “on the protection of all civilians, the unconditional and immediate release of the hostages, the access of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and the search for a solution based on two States coexisting in peace and security”.
Sánchez – in what will be his first international trip since his renewal as President of the Government – will be accompanied by the Prime Minister of Belgium, Alexander de Croo. Spain currently holds the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU and Belgium will begin to do so on January 1, so the aim of the visit of both leaders is to convey the position of the European Union to the leaders of Israel and Palestine, according to the same sources.
This is the second visit of Pedro Sánchez to Egypt since the beginning of the escalation of the Middle East conflict after the terrorist attacks of last October 7 by Hamas against Israel and the subsequent Israeli military response against the Gaza Strip. On October 20, the President of the Government (then in office) took part in a summit called by Abdel Fatah al Sisi to try to stop Israel’s war against Hamas and the resulting humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, Pedro Sanchez, in his capacity as President-in-turn of the EU Council, participated in that meeting; King Abdullah II of Jordan, the Emir of Qatar, Tamin bin Hamad al-Thani, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Ministers of Italy and Greece, Georgia Meloni and Kyriakos Mitsoakis, and the Foreign Ministers of Germany, Annalena Baerbock, France, Catherine Colonna, and the United Kingdom, James Cleverly, among other leaders. No representatives from the United States, Israel or Iran (the country that many analysts consider to be Hamas’s main supporter) were present. Mahmoud Abbas was present.
During his speech in Cairo, Sanchez called for the protection of “all civilians”, both the Israeli hostages held by Hamas and the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza, and urged the international community to “lay the foundations for two states, Israel and Palestine, that respect each other and coexist in security and peace”.
