The King and Albares attend Ibero-American Summit, where they will receive the baton for 2026 edition

Eduardo González King Felipe VI and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, represent Spain at the XXIX Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which is being held from this Wednesday until Friday in Cuenca (Ecuador) and where they will attend the ceremony of the transfer of the Secretariat pro Tempore to prepare the next Summit, which will take place in Spain in 2026. Don Felipe leads the Spanish delegation and Albares attends as the highest representative of the Government, after the head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, announced last week that he would not travel to Ecuador to closely follow the DANA crisis. The King's official agenda will begin this Thursday, with his attendance at half past four in the afternoon (half past ten in the evening in Spain) at the closing ceremony of the 15th Ibero-American Business Meeting. The meeting, which will address four major issues (employability and inclusion, sustainability, gender and innovation), will include the presentation of the "Manifesto for employability: for a fairer Ibero-America" and the transfer of the Presidency of the Ibero-American Business Council (CEIB). The business meeting was inaugurated this Wednesday by Francisco Jarrin Rivadeneira, president of the National Federation of Chambers of Industry of Ecuador; Antonio Garamendi, president of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) and of the Permanent Secretariat of the Ibero-American Business Council (CEIB); Andrés Allamand, Ibero-American Secretary General (SEGIB) and Gabriela Sommerfeld, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility of Ecuador. The Monarch will then attend the opening ceremony of the Summit, which will take place at seven in the evening (one in the morning on Friday in Spain) at the Pumapungo Museum, and will continue an hour later with the opening dinner, offered by the President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, in the same building. On Friday, Felipe VI will attend from nine in the morning (three in the afternoon in Spain), also at the Pumapungo Museum, the plenary session of heads of state and government of Ibero-America. At the end of the Summit, which will take place four hours later, the King and Albares will attend the closing ceremony of the XXIX Ibero-American Summit and the transfer of the pro Tempore Secretariat, which will pass from Ecuador to Spain until the next Summit, which will be held in our country in 2026. Spain was unanimously chosen as the venue for the next Summit. During the next two years, it will be responsible for organizing the Ibero-American ministerial conferences, as well as the meetings of foreign ministers and national coordinators and other preparatory forums and meetings. According to a press release from Foreign Affairs, the “most general” objective of the 2026 Ibero-American Summit will be the “synchronization” of the Summit system with “the needs, expectations and challenges of the present and the immediate future of Ibero-America, which would be structured around three axes: political, thematic and institutional.” Albares Albares' agenda includes his participation, on Wednesday night (early morning in Spain), in the dinner of foreign ministers, organized by the Ecuadorian foreign minister Gabriela Sommerfeld. On Thursday morning, Albares will speak at the Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Ibero-America (nine in the morning, one in the afternoon in Spain) and in the afternoon he will attend the opening ceremony of the Ibero-American Summit, at the Pumpapongo Museum, as well as the opening dinner offered by the president of Ecuador. According to Foreign Affairs, the minister is confident that the Summit will achieve "concrete results" in issues such as innovation, inclusion or sustainability, as well as the thematic axes raised throughout the Ecuadorian pro tempore Secretariat: security, mobility and youth employability. On Friday, Albares will accompany the King to the plenary session and, later (at 4:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m. in Spain), he will participate in the closing press conference together with the President of Ecuador and the Ibero-American Secretary General.

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