Luis Ayllón
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has decided to bring back, in-person, the Conferences of Ambassadors that were started in 2001 and were interrupted over the years. Albares has now called the heads of mission to Madrid on 9 and 10 January 2023.
The Conference will be focused on preparing the Spanish Presidency of the European Union in the second half of next year and will take place when Spain is already part of the “troika” of EU Presidencies, together with Sweden, which will begin on 1 January 2023, and Belgium, which will take over from Spain in the first half of 2024.
The meeting will also serve to coordinate the strategic priorities of the foreign policy being developed by the government.
The call to the 117 ambassadors and 11 permanent representatives in international organisations that Spain has in the world has been made through an internal circular and will be the first to be held entirely in person since 2008. In January 2021, when Arancha González Laya was still Minister of Foreign Affairs, she called the ambassadors to the Conference, but due to the persistence of the Cov id 19 pandemic, only a few were able to come to Madrid and the rest had to follow the meetings by videoconference.
The ambassadors were addressed by His Majesty the King; the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez; the Vice-Presidents Nadia Calviño and Teresa Ribera; the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and other ministers such as the Ministers of the Interior and Industry, Trade and Tourism.
The Ambassadors’ Conferences, a model used in many neighbouring countries, began in 2001, under the government of José María Aznar, and for a time were held annually. In 2008, when José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was head of government, they ceased to be held, among other reasons, due to the cost of transferring all the ambassadors to Spain, at a time of economic crisis.
In the following years, the meetings did not take place until 2021, when González Laya convened the VI Conference, with a hybrid character (face-to-face and telematic), and with the intention of returning to an annual frequency. However, in 2022 the Conference was not convened and in January of next year the VI edition will take place, in which Felipe VI and Pedro Sánchez, as well as several of their Cabinet ministers, are also expected to participate.
