<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares will travel to the Czech Republic this week, where he will sign a Memorandum of Understanding on political consultations with his counterpart, Jan Lipavský.</strong></h4> The official trip to Prague will begin this Tuesday, following the Council of Ministers meeting, according to Albares' weekly agenda, released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On Wednesday, Albares will be received by Lipavský, with whom he will discuss bilateral cooperation, strengthening economic relations, progress in Europe, including European security, transatlantic relations, and other foreign policy issues, according to the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The ministers will also sign a Memorandum of Understanding on political consultations between the Foreign Ministries, the same source added. The meeting will take place at the Czernin Palace, headquarters of the Czech Foreign Ministry, and will conclude with a joint press conference. For its part, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced this Monday that both ministers will sign an Agreement on Political Consultations "that will allow for strengthening bilateral contacts in the future and will be a new instrument for deepening the political relationship" and will review the international situation, "with special attention to the war in Ukraine and the emergence of the new US administration in the geopolitical context." Regarding the relationship between the two countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that 2,300 Spaniards currently live in the Czech Republic and more than 15,000 Czechs in Spain. Furthermore, the Czech Republic is Spain's second-largest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe, and more than 100 Spanish companies operate in the Czech Republic. Albares will also make special mention of the promotion of Spanish, which is taught in Czech schools through six bilingual Spanish sections in secondary education, as well as through the Cervantes Institute, which has a branch in Prague. In Prague, the minister will also attend the premiere of the documentary film "Cenizas," which tells the story of a group of Spaniards murdered at the Hradištk Nazi concentration camp and buried in the Strašnice crematorium on the outskirts of Prague. Coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the closure of the Hradištk camp, Albares will meet with the families of the Spanish victims. This is Albares' first official bilateral visit to the Czech Republic. The minister traveled to Prague in August 2022 to participate in the meeting of EU foreign ministers, known as the "Gymnich meeting," on the occasion of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council. Separately, Albares received his then-Czech counterpart, Martin Dvořák, in Madrid in May 2024. During the aforementioned Czech Presidency (second half of 2022), Pascual Navarro, then-State Secretary for the EU at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also traveled to Prague. That visit, along with that of Xiana Méndez, then-State Secretary for Trade, in 2021, were the first to the country since the start of the pandemic. Former Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya had attempted to visit the Czech Republic in 2020, but the health situation prevented it.
