Eduardo González
Philip VI and Letizia will maintain an intense work agenda during the State visit they will make this week to Andorra, in which no bilateral agreement will be signed and whose agenda will not include the issue of the Principality’s contribution framework, after the controversy generated by the departure of several Spanish youtubers to Andorra to take advantage of its tax advantages.
The State visit, the first of this rank by a Spanish head of state in the history of the Principality, will take place on March 25 and 26 and the King and Queen will be accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya. The highest-ranking official visit made to date to the Pyrenean country was made in 2015 by the then Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy. Apart from that, this is the first state visit of the King and Queen since November 2019, when they traveled to Cuba. The King and Queen’s trips abroad have been suspended because of COVID-19 (which forced the suspension of a State visit to the USA), with the exception of the humanitarian visit made by Doña Letizia to Honduras in mid-December last year.
According to diplomatic sources, the trip will take place mainly for two reasons: to comply with the King’s tradition of visiting the venue of the Ibero-American Summit and to strengthen bilateral relations with a country in which Spain is the main commercial and investment partner and where 27,000 Spanish citizens and 3,000 cross-border workers reside. On April 21, Andorra will host the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will be held in a semi-presential manner and will be attended by the King and the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.
The first day of the State visit will be dedicated mainly to the institutional sphere. Specifically, the King and Queen will be received at the Casa de la Vall, seat of the Andorran unicameral Parliament, by the co-princes of Andorra, the bishop of La Seu d’Urgell, Monsignor Joan Enric Vives i Sicilia, and the representative of the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Besides, they will also meet with the president of the Consell General (the Parliament), Roser Suñé, and, after visiting the Town Hall (el Comú) of Andorra la Vella, where they will be received by the mayoress (la cònsol major), Conxita Marsol, Philip VI and Letizia will meet at the seat of the Government with the head of the Executive, Xavier Espot Zamora, who will later offer a dinner in honor of the King and Queen.
The second day of the trip will have a fundamentally educational and cultural character, since it will include a visit to the Spanish school María Moliner -one of the six Spanish public schools that exist in Andorra-, a tour of the Andorran architectural heritage and a visit to the town of Ordino, 20 kilometers from Andorra la Vella. The official visit will conclude with a lunch hosted, once again, by Xavier Espot Zamora. Because of the pandemic, the King and Queen’s State visit will not include the traditional reception for the Spanish community, which will be replaced by the school community of the María de Molina school.
Despite the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the State visit will not include the signing of any bilateral agreement. Likewise, the agenda does not include the issue of Andorra’s fiscal dumping, which has been in the news in Spain due to the visit of several well-known youtubers to the Principality. In this regard, the aforementioned diplomatic sources specified that this controversy “does not affect bilateral relations and does not appear on the official agenda” because Spain “does not place restrictions on Spanish citizens being able to reside abroad” nor on them having to pay their taxes in their new countries after six months of legal residence. “We have nothing to say, it is not an issue of the bilateral relationship,” they insisted.
