Madrid will host the 2026 Ibero-American Summit

Eduardo González The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, announced this Wednesday that Madrid will host the Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will be held in the last quarter of 2026. “The 2026 Summit will be held in Spain, and we are very honored by the unanimous support of the Ibero-American community, who have expressed their confidence in our country,” said Albares during a joint press conference with the Ibero-American Secretary General (SEGIB), Andrés Allamand, before both met with the Ibero-American ambassadors accredited in Spain to address, precisely, the XXX Ibero-American Summit. “I announce that the Summit will be held in the city of Madrid,” he continued. “On that day, Madrid will not only be the capital of Spain, it will also be the capital of Latin America, because all Madrid residents and all Spaniards feel that all Latin American peoples are brothers,” he said. “I am sure that the Summit, having chosen Madrid as its venue, will be a success for the country, as were the NATO Summit and the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council,” he added. According to Albares, the Spanish Government and SEGIB will work to “reduce polarization” and to “work with everyone and listen to everyone so that, after two years of Pro Tempore Secretariat, when we hand over the baton to another sister country of Latin America, there will be a stronger Latin American community with more effective working methods.” “In these times of enormous geopolitical transformation,” Spain and the Ibero-American community have the “opportunity to strengthen political, economic and social relations” to become “a community with its own voice, heard and with weight in the world,” said Albares. The Minister announced that both Allamand and the State Secretary Ibero-America, Susana Sumelzo, are going to hold meetings with all the national coordinators to begin organizing the summit, “first in Mexico, a sister country, and then in Peru and Uruguay.” Albares also assured that the Spanish pro Tempore Secretariat will work to reaffirm and consolidate the Ibero-American community, a space “with a solid common heritage, two global languages with an enormous demographic weight, 700 million inhabitants around the world and enriched by dozens of co-official languages.” He also announced that other objectives of the Spanish pro Tempore Secretariat will be to promote the expansion of Spanish and Portuguese, increase the number of consultative and associate observers and seek fairer development funding. The commitment to Spanish and Portuguese, both in science and in Artificial Intelligence, will be some of the keys to the 2026 Summit, he added. Fourth Summit in Spain To date, Spain has hosted three Ibero-American Summits. Madrid hosted the second, in July 1992, in the midst of the fifth centenary of the Discovery of America. In addition, Salamanca celebrated the fifteenth in October 2005 and Cadiz hosted the twenty-second in November 2012, coinciding with the bicentennial of the Constitution of 1812, drafted in this city. The Ibero-American Summits are part of a political coordination mechanism that brings together the 22 Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula, including Portugal, Andorra and Spain. At them, heads of state and government debate and work on an agenda based on common interests. The previous summit, held in Cuenca (Ecuador) in mid-November 2024, was characterized, above all, by the absence of all the presidents of the region, with the exception of the host, the Ecuadorian Daniel Noboa. As heads of state, only the European leaders attended: Felipe VI of Spain, the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the Head of Government of Andorra, Xavier Espot. The King was accompanied by José Manuel Albares, who participated as the highest representative of the Government after President Pedro Sánchez cancelled his attendance to closely follow the DANA crisis in Valencia. Allamand announces the candidacies of Panama and Honduras In this regard, Allamand expressed his conviction, at the same press conference, that “all Ibero-American countries” will attend the Summit at the highest level and announced that Panama and Honduras “have already formally presented their candidacy to organize the 2028 Summit,” which demonstrates “the interest of the countries to consolidate, strengthen and strongly project the Ibero-American community. Allamand also warned that the Ibero-American community, in the current international geopolitical context, “is more necessary than ever.” “Countries in the region perceive the community as a space to strengthen political dialogue, as an instance to adopt common positions on global issues, as an instrument to promote cooperation, as a mechanism to generate rights and as a platform to strengthen the link between Latin America and Europe,” he said. “The principles that inspired this community remain fully valid,” he concluded.

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