<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4 class="lRu31" dir="ltr"><strong><span class="HwtZe" lang="en"><span class="jCAhz ChMk0b"><span class="ryNqvb">The Government filed a formal complaint to Mexico on Tuesday over the exclusion of the King from the inauguration of President-elect Eva Sheinbaum, according to Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares on Friday.</span></span></span></strong></h4> <div dir="ltr"></div> <div class="lRu31" dir="ltr">On Tuesday, the Spanish Government described the exclusion of King Felipe VI from the invitation to the inauguration of the president-elect of Mexico as “unacceptable” and announced, through a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, that “the Government of Spain has decided not to participate in said inauguration at any level.</div> On Tuesday, before issuing the statement, the Mexican ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to submit a formal complaint for this reason and the Spanish ambassador to Mexico, Juan Duarte, personally went to the Mexican Foreign Ministry to deliver a verbal note, as Albares explained in New York at a press conference after the UN High Level Week. <span class="HwtZe" lang="en"><span class="jCAhz ChMk0b"><span class="ryNqvb">"Our position is clear, it is known and I confirm that a verbal note was sent and the Mexican ambassador summoned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convey exactly the same thing that you already know through the official statement and that I have had the opportunity to exchange with the Mexican foreign minister," said the minister.</span></span></span> In the verbal note, as reported by the newspaper <em>El País</em>, it was noted that the King, in his capacity as head of State, “assumes the highest representation of the Spanish State in international relations.” The note also recalled that the Monarch had attended all the inaugurations of Mexican leaders, including the current outgoing president, André Manuel López Obrador, and demanded that Spain be represented at the highest level for the occasion, given the deep relations between the two countries. However, once “all channels to respectfully convey” this demand had been exhausted, the Government finally opted to announce that “there will be no” Spanish representation at the inauguration, which will take place on October 1. The day after the events, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, declared to the press from New York that “the Government of Spain considers Mexico to be a sister country,” and, therefore, it is “absolutely unacceptable that the presence of our head of state be excluded, a head of state who, by the way, has participated in all the inaugurations, as Prince and also since he is the King. That same day, Claudia Sheinbaum announced in a statement that the King had been excluded from the guest list for not having responded to a letter sent in 2019 by the outgoing president, Andrés López Obrador, in which he was urged to apologize for the Spanish conquest. The president-elect clarified that, on the other hand, Sánchez had been invited, with whom she had had a conversation “on the matter.” At the aforementioned meeting with the media in New York, the president of the Government did not want to comment on this detail: “I, regarding the personal conversations that I have, in this case with the president-elect of Mexico, I am not going to make any statement because they remain within the realm of discretion.” In any case, this call, according to sources, was the last attempt, after the verbal note, to change the mind of the Mexican Government. <h5><strong>Alicia Bárcena</strong></h5> For her part, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alicia Bárcena, assured the media this Friday at the UN headquarters in New York that she has maintained contacts with Pedro Sánchez and José Manuel Albares, with whom, she assured, she maintains “excellent” relations, although she has invited Spain to participate in a “redress meeting” that allows “getting out of the situation” generated by the 2019 letter. She also recalled that she herself is of Spanish descent and acknowledged that the events to which her Government refers date back “a long time”, as reported by Europa Press. According to Bárcena, relations between the two countries are in a third phase “of great economic and political dynamism”, so there is room for the two countries to end up “coming to an agreement” and resolve the current crisis. In this regard, Albares said at the press conference that he had held several meetings with Bárcenas in New York, including a meeting with her and the foreign ministers of Colombia and Brazil to discuss Venezuela, and that, in these meetings, he had "conveyed exactly the same thing" as mentioned in the Foreign Affairs statement. He also said that Spain wants to maintain "the best relations with a sister nation like Mexico," but, "of course, we do not accept any representation at any level other than that of head of state at the inauguration." "I want to be very clear: let no one have any doubts, with Mexico or with any other country in the world, as long as I am Minister of Foreign Affairs, Spain's foreign policy will always, always defend our institutions, starting with the highest, the Head of State," he concluded. <h5><strong>López Obrador</strong></h5> In March 2019, Andrés Manuel López Obrador revealed that on the first day of that month he had sent a letter to King Felipe VI in which he proposed that the two countries create a roadmap so that “the Kingdom of Spain publicly and officially expresses its recognition of the grievances caused” during the conquest of Mexico against the “indigenous peoples.” The Government “firmly” rejected the content of the letter. That was the first in a series of diplomatic clashes with López Obrador in relation to the memory of the conquest and the colonial period. Three years later, in February 2022, López Obrador returned to the charge against Spain, proposing to put “on hold” relations between the two countries and launching accusations of “plundering” by Spain. Days later, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, travelled to Mexico, where he declared that the two countries have a “privileged relationship” and stated that he was unaware of the meaning of the “pause” in relations announced by the president. This past Thursday, López Obrador took advantage of his daily press conference to recall that, after his 2019 letter, “not only was there no response, but they leaked the letter and unleashed an entire campaign against us.” According to the still president, the letter was “respectful and formal” and the Spanish “acted with great arrogance.”
