The Real Casa de Correos, headquarters of the Presidency of the Community of Madrid, has dressed in its best clothes to receive the Argentine president, Javier Milei, with whom the Spanish Government has maintained a diplomatic pulse since, on his previous visit to Spain , a month ago, insulted the President of the Government and his wife. Milei arrived at seven o’clock in the afternoon at Puerta del Sol, where several hundred people cheered him with shouts of “Milei, friend, Spain is with you” and “Freedom!”
Ayuso received her guest at street level, dressed in a long light blue dress – the color, along with white, of the Argentine flag – and flanked by her entire Government Council. The two held a private meeting, which lasted more than half an hour, before going down to the central patio of the building, where representatives of some 70 Spanish and international media were gathered. After signing in her book of honor, the hostess awarded her the international medal of the Community of Madrid, which on previous occasions was received by the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, or that of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa.
In the morning, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, had denied the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who described as “official” the visit that the Argentine head of state, Javier, will make to Spain this Friday. Milei. “Without a doubt this is a private visit. There is nothing on the official agenda from what I have known so far about that visit,” said the head of Spanish diplomacy in a joint press conference with the Qatari Prime Minister, Mohamed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani. By expressing himself like this, Albares was denying official status to the meeting that Ayuso will hold this afternoon with Milei at the Real Casa de Correos, headquarters of the regional Presidency, in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, an event known since yesterday.
The Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid (BOCAM) published this Friday a royal decree, signed by Díaz Ayuso, which grants the region’s international medal to President Milei, for “the important historical, cultural, linguistic and economic links” that They unite the autonomous community with Argentina. The decree refers to the autonomous law of April of this year that provides for the granting of these distinctions, “as a gesture of courtesy and as recognition and respect of the citizens of the Community, to the representatives of other countries and to the highest dignitaries of organizations international and European Union, on an official visit to the Region for its institutional work.” Thus, the official nature of Milei’s visit, which Albares denies, is an essential legal requirement to be able to grant him this decoration. The spokesperson for Más Madrid in the regional Assembly, Manuela Bergerot, sent a burofax to the headquarters of the Madrid Presidency on Thursday in which she already warned that the awarding of the medal to Milei “does not comply with legal requirements.”
The Foreign Minister has avoided accusing the Madrid president of “institutional disloyalty”, as sources from his department did on Thursday. The one who has done so has been the first vice president, María Jesús Montero, who has reproached Ayuso for not respecting “the architecture of democracy”, which attributes the direction of foreign policy to the Government; the minister spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, who has described Milei’s award as a “fake medal”; or the head of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, for whom the conduct of the Madrid president “clearly violates the Foreign Action and Service Law.” This law, which was approved in 2014, with Mariano Rajoy as president, to prevent the Catalan Generalitat, in nationalist hands, from boycotting the foreign policy of the PP Government, obliges the autonomous communities to inform their department of their trips and visits. of an international nature.
Albares has limited himself to underlining that “Spain only has one foreign policy”, which this Friday, according to him, is focused on holding the strategic dialogue with the Qatari delegation. “Everything that concerns this foreign policy is organized in coordination with the institutions of the State, even with the Royal House,” he added. He was thus responding to the fact that Felipe VI did not receive the Argentine president, as he had requested in writing weeks ago. Albares has not assumed at any time that it was his department that has vetoed the King’s audience at Milei, but La Zarzuela sources have made it clear that visits by foreign leaders and trips by the head of state to other countries are always coordinated. with Foreign Affairs and that “foreign policy is the exclusive responsibility of the Government”, so the Monarch does not have any autonomy in that field; nor, in theory, does the Madrid president.
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In the face of internal criticism, the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, has defended the actions of Díaz Ayuso, framing the awarding of the medal to Milei in “normality” and ensuring that the party leadership “respects” the decisions they may make. the regional presidents within the framework of their powers “as it could not be otherwise,” Europa Press reports. In an interview with Tele 5, the PP spokesperson justified the absence of Alberto Núñez Feijóo at the Puerta del Sol event by claiming that he “was not invited and if he was invited, he has other things on his agenda.”
Milei’s plane landed early in the afternoon at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base (Madrid), since the Government has given him the protocol treatment of head of state, despite considering his visit to be private. After the event at Puerta del Sol, Milei plans to participate in the so-called Freedom Dinner, which will be offered at the Gran Casino of Madrid by the Juan de Marina Institute, who has awarded him his annulled award “for his defense of ideas of freedom”. This institute is a think tank ultraliberal whose executive director is Manuel Llamas Fraga, who between 2019 and 2023 was part of Díaz Ayuso’s Executive, first as Chief of Staff of Minister Javier Fernández-Lasquetty and then as Deputy Minister of Economy.
After his stay in Madrid, Milei will travel to Germany and the Czech Republic to collect more awards from ultra-liberal clubs. His program in Berlin, which included military honors and a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz, was cut to a minimum after the German government spokesman criticized Milei’s insults to the Spanish president and Milei refused to hold a press conference with Scholz. . In the six months that he has been in office. The Argentine president has made a dozen trips abroad and has spent a month outside his country, which has earned internal criticism. Although on many of these trips she has not maintained contact with local authorities, but with political or business co-religionists such as former President Donald Trump, the leader of Vox Santiago Abascal or the owner of the social network X Elon Musk, Milei uses the official plane and charges the expenses to the public treasury.
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