Albares advocates for an Ibero-American disaster management mechanism after the Venezuelan earthquake

Eduardo González Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares called on Tuesday for the upcoming Ibero-American Summit, to be held in Madrid on November 4 and 5, to launch a new regional cooperation strategy for the coming years. This strategy should include a joint mechanism for “civil protection and disaster management that allows for better prevention and response to environmental crises or emergencies, whether earthquakes in Venezuela or fires on the Iberian Peninsula.” “We want the Madrid Summit to bring the Ibero-American community closer to all our citizens, to better explain what this shared space means and why it matters in their daily lives,” Albares stated during his address at the colloquium “Ibero-America, a way of being and existing in the world,” part of the summer course “Spain in the World 2026” at the Menéndez Pelayo International University, in the Magdalena Palace in Santander. “In Madrid, we want to strengthen cooperation and focus it on tangible results that will be felt in the lives of ordinary citizens,” in areas such as “student mobility, the recognition of academic credentials, an Ibero-American alliance for artificial intelligence and digital transformation, an Ibero-American social agenda focused on care, and an Ibero-American cooperation mechanism for civil protection and disaster management, which will allow us to better prevent and respond to environmental crises or emergencies, whether earthquakes in Venezuela or fires on the Iberian Peninsula,” he continued. All of this, he warned, must be part of “a renewed Ibero-American cooperation strategy that we want to be the general framework for our collaboration in the coming years.” “But we want to go even further, because the Ibero-American community should not limit itself to internal cooperation,” and therefore, “one of the objectives of the Madrid Summit is to broaden Ibero-America’s ties with other countries, other regions, and other organizations,” he affirmed. “The Summit we will be holding here in Madrid, Spain, on November 4th and 5th, will be a great opportunity to look ahead, to envision an Ibero-America understood as a space for political dialogue, solidarity, and cooperation,” he continued. “That is the true purpose of this meeting: to make Ibero-America an even stronger community, a united community, and a community with a strong presence in the world,” he insisted. “These days, as we all celebrate the extraordinary victory of the men’s national football team, dozens and dozens of foreign ministers from around the world are congratulating me and telling me that they, too, were rooting for Spain in that final. This is not only because of the immense quality of the football team, but also because of the values that our community represents,” Albares added, referring to Spain’s victory in the World Cup final against Argentina, another member of the Ibero-American community.

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