Eduardo González
Spain has obtained the support of all the member states of the Ibero-American Community to host the XXX Ibero-American Summit in 2026, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“The Government thanks all the countries of the Ibero-American space for their support and the trust placed in Spain, to continue working and advancing together within the framework of this forum for dialogue, political agreement and cooperation, unique in the world due to its nature and scope,” declared the Ministry through a press release.
“Great news for Spain! We will host the Ibero-American Summit 2026,” declared the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, through the social network X. “We thank the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB) and the States of the Ibero-American Community for their support,” he added. “Committed to the Ibero-American vision of being and being in the world,” he concluded.
At the press conference following the EU Foreign Affairs Council, held yesterday in Brussels, Albares declared that the holding of the Summit represents “recognition of the role and voice of Spain in Ibero-America and a success of Spanish diplomacy.” “Spain has a double soul, it has a European soul and it has an Ibero-American soul” and, therefore, “for me it is a pleasure to be able to celebrate this news precisely here in Brussels, the capital of Europe, where that European and Spanish soul is demonstrated.”
For his part, the Ibero-American Secretary General, Andrés Allamand, has congratulated the Spanish Government for this appointment and has highlighted “Spain’s firm and continued commitment to the Ibero-American project.”
Spain will assume the Pro Tempore Secretariat and, therefore, the direction of the preparatory work for the Summit – which will be held in a city yet to be determined – when the XXIX Summit, scheduled for November of this year in Cuenca, in Ecuador, concludes.
To date, Spain has hosted three Ibero-American Summits: Madrid hosted the second, in July 1992, in the middle of the fifth centenary of the Discovery of America; Salamanca celebrated the fifteenth in October 2005 and Cádiz hosted the twenty-second in November 2012, coinciding with the bicentennial of the Constitution of 1812, written in this city.
This Summit, according to Foreign Ministry, will be “especially symbolic” because it is the thirtieth and coincides with the 35th anniversary of the I Ibero-American Summit held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1991.
The Ibero-American Summits are part of a political coordination mechanism that integrates the 22 Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, including Portugal, Andorra and Spain. In them, the heads of State and Government debate and work on an agenda based on common interests, which are materialized through an Action Program and the Quadrennial Action Plans of Ibero-American Cooperation (PACCI).
Linked to these Summits, a calendar of sectoral ministerial meetings, forums and meetings that make up the Ibero-American Conference is developed. For two years, the country that exercises the Pro Tempore Secretariat (Spain will do so during the 25-26 biennium) coordinates, together with the Ibero-American General Secretariat, said calendar of meetings and meetings in which representatives of the countries of the Member States participate. and civil society.
The fundamental objective for the XXX Summit, according to Foreign Affairs, is to begin a new stage of reaffirmation of the system, in which the priority areas of action by the States that comprise it are jointly identified, in the context of an agenda marked by topics of common interest.
“In line with the above, at the XXX Summit the objective is to approve the Quadrennial Action Plan for Ibero-American Cooperation 2026-2029, which will give it additional relevance,” the press release continues. “Ibero-American cooperation is the cornerstone of this system, in which the mandates of the heads of State and Government are translated into concrete initiatives, with a direct and positive impact on Ibero-American citizens,” it concludes.
