The Diplomat
Spain’s organisation of the NATO Summit was praised by all participating nations on the final day, with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg summing it up as “perfect, flawless and excellent”.
Like Stoltenberg, many leaders used their press appearances to highlight the way in which the meetings were conducted and all that goes into organising an event that brought together some 50 leaders and their delegations.
The participants and their companions were particularly satisfied with the more entertaining events held around the official meetings, such as the dinners at the Royal Palace and the Prado Museum, and the visits to La Granja, the Reina Sofía Museum and the Royal Theatre, in which the Queen played a leading role as hostess.
The image offered by Spain to the world has been unbeatable and once again our country has shown its ability to organise major events to perfection, as happened in 1991 when in just ten days it facilitated the holding of a complicated Middle East Peace Conference; in 1997 when Madrid hosted a NATO summit for the first time; or more recently in the organisation of the Climate Change Summit in very little time, in December 2019, following the resignation of Chile, to name but a few of the most important events.
“Madrid has been the best setting for a historic summit,” said Stoltenberg, after thanking “the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, his government and the citizens of Madrid”.
At the end of the summit, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, posted a photograph on his Twitter account of the team that worked in his department to organise the summit, accompanied by the following message: “Fantastic work by the entire team of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, and especially our Embassy to the Atlantic Alliance to ensure that the historic NATO Summit in Madrid was a success for Spain”.
