<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, chaired the first extraordinary meeting of the Ibero-American Community in Seville on Tuesday, where he presented the roadmap for the 2026 Madrid Summit to his regional counterparts.</strong></h4> Albares specifically explained the ministerial meetings, forums, and gatherings leading up to the Madrid Summit and presented the document from the Spanish Pro Tempore Secretariat, which includes the thematic priorities for the current period, with special attention to the Ibero-American environmental agenda, principles and rights in digital environments, the mainstreaming of bilingualism, and the application of artificial intelligence in the Ibero-American space. The meeting took place in Seville, on the sidelines of the Fourth United Nations International Conference on Financing for Development. According to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Albares emphasized the importance of strengthening ministerial meetings as a forum that provides political guidance to the Ibero-American Community and emphasized the role of the Ibero-American Community as a privileged forum for political dialogue, political consensus, solidarity, and cooperation based on shared historical and cultural affinities. In this context, the Ibero-American Secretary General, Andrés Allamand, and the Ibero-American representatives adopted by consensus the Seville Declaration, which calls for strengthening meetings of foreign ministers "as a forum for providing political guidance to the Community between the Summits of Heads of State and Government" and highlights the "commitment of all Member States to the preparatory work for the 30th Ibero-American Summit to be held in Madrid." Likewise, it calls for "advancing towards more strategic and concerted planning of Ibero-American Cooperation" to "continue responding to the challenges facing our citizens based on the principles of inclusive participation, horizontality among its members, and consensus in decision-making." In this regard, the ministers ask the relevant bodies of the Ibero-American Community to develop a proposed Strategy for Ibero-American Cooperation for eventual validation at the Meeting of Foreign Ministers in November 2025, in accordance with the agreed-upon methodology. The Declaration also highlights "the founding commitment to mainstreaming bilingualism and the need to promote the use of Spanish and Portuguese as official languages of our Community" and urges "consensually strengthening the international reach of the Ibero-American Community, building bridges with other regions, as well as deepening work plans with the Associate and Consultative Observers."
