The King and Sánchez lead a high-level Spanish delegation to a UN Assembly marked by the Gaza massacre

Eduardo González King Felipe VI and the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, will preside over the High-Level Week of the eightieth session of the United Nations General Assembly starting this Monday. This event will be clearly marked by the International Conference on Palestine and by the more than predictable hostile attitude on this issue by the host country, the United States, whose President, Donald Trump, has banned the entry of Palestinian representatives for the first time in many years. The general debate of the United Nations General Assembly itself will begin on Tuesday, September 23, continue until Saturday, September 27, and conclude on Monday, September 29. In addition to the King and Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish delegation will also be attended by the Third Vice President and Minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares. The Minister of Health, Mónica García, will also travel to New York, but in her case to participate in events parallel to the High-Level Week. The King's trip to New York will begin on Monday with a reception for the Spanish community working at the United Nations Headquarters. The following day, King Felipe will attend the opening of the general debate of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly and, in the afternoon, the roundtable discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations on transatlantic relations. To conclude the day, the King, in his capacity as head of state, will attend the reception hosted by the President of the United States and the First Lady, which Pedro Sánchez will not attend. This year's General Assembly coincides with the 80th anniversary of the UN and the 70th anniversary of Spain's entry. Therefore, Pedro Sánchez's government has opted to send a high-level representation, headed by the King and the Prime Minister. The motto of this year's General Assembly will be "Together we are better: 80 years and more for peace, development, and human rights." Felipe VI's address is scheduled for Wednesday, when he will open the session and will be immediately followed by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky. Government sources consulted by The Diplomat have not specified the content of the King's speech. Separately, and on the sidelines of the Assembly, Pedro Sánchez is scheduled to meet in New York with UN Secretary-General António Guterres (on Monday); Volodymyr Zelensky; and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung; Angolan President João Lourenço (current rotating presidency of the African Union and just days away from the EU-AU summit, which will be held in his country at the end of November); Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang (following the recent trade negotiations in Madrid between the US and China); the Rockefeller Foundation; and the Council of the Americas. He will also meet with foreign investors and investment funds and participate in the closing ceremony of the event "Latin America, Spain and the United States in the Global Economy," organized by the Spain-US Chamber of Commerce, at the Cervantes Institute. Pedro Sánchez will also hold a press conference on Wednesday at around 2:00 p.m. (local time, 8:00 p.m. in Spain) at the headquarters of the Permanent Mission of Spain to the United Nations. The 80th session coincides with a particularly important moment for the UN, with the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan (one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world), with the questioning of multilateralism following Donald Trump's arrival at the White House (the US has withdrawn from UNICEF, the WHO, the Human Rights Council, and the Paris Agreement, and has withdrawn its financial support from UNRWA), and with the reformist push for a new order led by China. Furthermore, this will be the last General Assembly for António Guterres, whose term expires at the end of 2026. Discussions to determine his successor will begin in early 2026, and Spain will seek to have a woman fill the position, according to sources at Moncloa. Another new feature of the General Assembly will be the participation of Donald Trump, who will deliver his speech on Tuesday, immediately after Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. By tradition, Brazil, the first signatory to the UN Charter, is responsible for opening the debate every year. Middle East Obviously, the highlight of this General Assembly will be the situation in the Middle East, especially given the holding, on Monday, of the "High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution." The conference will be held in the United Nations General Assembly Hall. It will be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia and structured into several working groups. Pedro Sánchez will co-chair, with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, Group One, entitled "Sovereignty and Governance of the Palestinian State, Including the Unification of Gaza and the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority." The Palestinian Authority will not be able to participate in this conference because, for the first time in many years, the host country, the United States, has refused to grant entry visas to representatives of the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). In any case, they do have UN accreditation, and therefore, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will be able to speak via videoconference, as confirmed by the UN and the Palestinian Authority delegation itself. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be able to speak physically, possibly on Friday before the General Assembly. In this regard, the aforementioned sources at Moncloa have expressed their expectation of what both the Israeli Prime Minister and Donald Trump himself will have to say, who will most likely remain largely isolated within a generally favorable tone for Palestine. In fact, the conference, promoted by Spain since late 2023, will coincide with a new round of recognition of the Palestinian state. In addition to the 147 countries (out of a total of 193 that make up the UN) that have already done so, it is highly likely that others will join around this time, some as important as France and the United Kingdom, which did so this weekend. Given the prevailing fear in various quarters that, during the same dates as the Assembly, Israel will launch new operations that would prevent the two-state solution, specifically the annexation of the West Bank, the aforementioned sources from Moncloa have implied that, at this time and in the midst of the rise of illegal Jewish settlements, it will not be so easy for Israel to launch a military operation to annex the territory, at least in the short term. In any case, according to the same sources, Spain believes that the most important thing at this time is not so much the recognition of the Palestinian state by the largest possible number of countries (among which there are two main options, those that defend the two-state solution, those that have opted, like Spain, to already recognize Palestine and those that, like Germany, consider that this should be the "last step"), but rather reaching a consensus within the international community that will allow for greater pressure to be put on Israel to end the tragedy and genocide in Gaza and not prevent the two-state solution from being achieved. Furthermore, Spain believes that the two-state solution requires countries that do not recognize Israel to do so, and therefore considers it very important that the conference be co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia. Spain's priorities Aside from the major issue of the Middle East, Spain will attend the General Assembly with "three major priorities," according to sources at Moncloa. The first priority is the "defense of democracy, of an open, democratic, and transparent society, and of institutions." Within this context, Pedro Sánchez will co-lead on Wednesday, with the President of Brazil, the second edition of the event "In Defense of Democracy, Fighting Extremism." The first edition took place a year ago on the sidelines of the Assembly and will also be co-organized by Chilean President Gabriel Boric. Separately, Sánchez will deliver a speech on Monday at Columbia University on the progressive model's response to the international crisis of the rules-based order and will participate on Wednesday in a tribute to former Uruguayan President José Mujica. The second priority, "strengthening Spain's support for coherence in respect for international law, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law," includes, in addition to the entire chapter on the Middle East, the participation of the Prime Minister in two events to promote the "feminist diplomacy" championed by his administration: a meeting on Monday to mark the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Conference on Women and attendance, the following day, at a meeting of the "He for She" initiative. Spain's third priority at the General Assembly is "economic development inspired by social and environmental principles." Within this framework, Sánchez will attend the Global Goalkeepers Award presentation ceremony on Monday, organized by the Gates Foundation, at the Lincoln Center, and on Wednesday, the Climate Summit in the Trusteeship Council Chamber at UN Headquarters. This summit will feature keynote addresses from Guterres and Lula, and will address the preparations for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, in November of this year (and where Spain will call on the international community to maintain "climate ambition" within the UN framework following extreme natural disasters such as this summer's wildfires and the DANA disaster). Separately, the Prime Minister will attend the high-level meeting on Thursday to launch the global dialogue on the governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). According to the aforementioned sources, Spain will defend the global consensus that innovation can be combined with the defense of human rights in the face of AI and will advocate for a joint resolution with Costa Rica proposing the implementation of a mechanism similar to the one already in place with the COP for climate, but in this case for the topic of AI, in order to facilitate the participation of governmental, non-governmental, and business stakeholders.

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