Eduardo González
The Council of Ministers agreed this past Tuesday to send the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and France to the Cortes Generales (Spanish Parliament), for which it has requested its processing by the urgency procedure, while authorizing the manifestation of Spain’s consent to be bound by the aforementioned treaty.
The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the Kingdom of Spain and the French Republic was negotiated by the two governments in compliance with what was agreed at the XXVI Spanish-French Summit, held in the French town of Montauban on March 15, 2021, and in whose Joint Declaration the two countries (led by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron) undertook to “start the work necessary for the signing of a Franco-Spanish bilateral cooperation treaty”.
The text was signed by Sánchez and Macron in Barcelona on January 19, 2023, within the framework of the XXVII Spanish-French Bilateral Summit. The “Barcelona Treaty”, the first of its kind signed between the two countries, raises bilateral relations to the highest possible level, comparable to that already enjoyed by Spain and Portugal since the Trujillo Summit in October 2021 and that enjoyed by France with Germany and Italy since Aachen in 1963 and Rome in 2021, respectively.
The text provides, among other innovations, the creation of a Franco-Spanish Defence and Security Council made up of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence, the development of a common framework in international relations, regular meetings between the Ministers of Economy, Industry, Connectivity and Tourism, the annual holding of a business and economic forum, the development of interconnections, the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy and the launching of a border cooperation committee.
“Due to the importance of this treaty for the relationship with a neighbouring, partner and ally country such as France, the process in the Cortes Generales will be carried out by the urgent procedure, as established in article 93 of the Regulations of the Congress of Deputies,” the Council of Ministers stated.