Luis Ayllón
The president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, has finally decided to travel to Spain, despite the difficult situation in the country, where the president himself declared on the 9th the existence of an “internal armed conflict.” His visit will begin today and will last until Friday.
Noboa, who had canceled his plans to travel to Spain to closely follow the fight against criminalized gangs in his country, has finally chosen to be present in Madrid, in order to attend today, together with the Kings of Spain, the inauguration of Fitur, the International Tourism Fair, in which Ecuador is the guest country.
The Ecuadorian president has valued that his presence in Fitur to promote Ecuador as a tourist destination is important when eyes are on the difficult times that the South American nation is experiencing.
It is expected that, in addition to attending the inauguration of Fitur this morning, Noboa will go to the Zarzuela Palace in the afternoon to hold a meeting with Felipe VI. A meeting has also been scheduled for that afternoon in Moncloa with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, with whom he has not had the opportunity to speak in person.
At the end of October and beginning of November, when Noboa traveled to Madrid as president-elect, he had a lunch with the King, but did not meet with the head of the Executive. The Spanish Government, both through its president and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, expressed on the 10th its condemnation of violent acts committed by criminal groups in Ecuador and its support for Ecuadorian democratic institutions to restore normality. . In some diplomatic media consulted by The Diplomat, the government’s reaction was missing express support for Noboa, who had just declared the existence of an internal conflict in the country and given full powers to the Armed Forces to combat the gangs. criminals, a support that PP leaders, such as its leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, did publicly express.
Business meeting
Noboa’s agenda also includes participating, tomorrow, Thursday, in a Spain-Ecuador Business Meeting, organized by the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE), the State Secretary for Commerce, through ICEX Spain Export and Investment, and the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, in collaboration with the Ecuadorian Embassy in Spain. The Ibero-American president will try to convince Spanish businessmen that, despite the circumstances, there are investment opportunities in the country’s strategic commercial sectors, such as infrastructure, energy, tourism and services.
These days, on the occasion of Fitur, the Minister of Tourism, Niels Olsen, as well as the Ministers of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition, Sade Fritschi, and Production, Sonsoles García, are in Spain, some of whom will also be present in the business meeting.
Although Noboa traveled to Miami a little over a week ago for the birth of his son, this will be his first official visit outside of Ecuador, since violent incidents, at the beginning of the year, were recorded in the country in various cities -mainly Guayaquil-, as well as several prison riots and the taking of hostages at a television station, which forced the Ecuadorian president to give broad powers to the Army to combat criminals.
