Eduardo González
Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said on Monday that Spain will be represented at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration by the ambassador in Washington, Ángeles Moreno Bau, and declared, regarding the attendance of the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, that the American president-elect “is free to invite whoever he wants.”
“At the inaugurations of American presidents, heads of state or government are not usually invited, they are personal invitations, not so much institutional ones,” Albares said during a joint press conference with his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, at the Viana Palace. “A president of the Government of Spain has never attended,” he added.
Participation in the inauguration of the presidents of the United States is not official and is carried out by personal invitation of the new president. In this case, Trump has invited the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, and the Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni, among others.
Santiago Abascal is also among the guests, as part of a delegation invited by the Patriots for Europe group, to the European Parliament. Donald Trump “is free to invite whoever he wants,” Albares said. “Spain’s position on the extreme right is clear: it is contrary to European values and we always defend European values,” he concluded.
