We Spaniards envy the determination of other countries in the tenacious pursuit of their national objectives. But then, when we have the possibility of doing the same, some of our political leaders show great childishness, guided by short-term personal or sectarian conveniences and not by country and long-term goals. Spain has invested a lot of time and money in building, developing and maintaining the Ibero-American Summits; If anyone is absolutely interested in its survival, it is precisely Spain, more than Portugal and certainly more than any of the countries in America, which already have other forums where they can meet. Only here can Spain sit at the same table periodically with all the Spanish-speaking countries (plus Brazil and Andorra), and do so with a certain sense of host, since the presence of the King is always present and he is accompanied by the president of the government. that there is at any given time (two instead of the one-person representation of the American countries) turns Spain into a point of reference. That is why Pedro Sánchez’s decision not to attend the Ibero-American Summit held in the Ecuadorian city of Cuenca since This Tuesday until Friday means throwing stones at the very roof of national interests. These summits, born in 1991 during the Government of Felipe González, are not exactly in their best moment. During Azar’s time, the initiative was consolidated with the creation of a permanent secretariat – the Ibero-American General Secretariat (Segib), based in Madrid – but the proliferation of international meetings of leaders generated an inflation of this type of meetings, which advised that The Ibero-American Summit, already in the time of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will be held every two years, instead of every year. The tensions between the Latin American countries themselves have been reducing attendance and for the Cuenca event there are only a dozen presidents confirmed at the moment. Out of self-interest in the initiative, Spain takes charge of 60% of Segib’s expenses… only for Sánchez to back out at the first opportunity and thereby devalue the Spanish representation. Standard Related News If Pedro Sánchez loses allies on both sides of the Atlantic Mariano Alonso The arrival of Trump and the Scholz crisis in Germany add to the change of government this year in Portugal Moncloa has alleged the coincidence of the Summit with the COP-29 conference on climate that starts this same week in Azerbaijan. What happens is that the sessions of presidents and heads of government in Cuenca were only on November 14 and 15 and in reality Sánchez had the rest of the month to be in Baku (also on November 18 and 19 he plans to be in the G- 20 that will take place in Brazil). It is quite clear that Sánchez has wanted to avoid going to Ecuador with the King (while taking advantage of the climate summit to continue shaping the narrative about DANA). It seems that the President of the Government does not like to take second place, even though the maximum ownership of the state corresponds to Felipe VI. His misgivings with Zarzuela come from a long time ago and have been widely revealed in the emergency experienced in Valencia. Now he is simply following a policy that has long been applied to state trips to America: for some time now, Sánchez has ignored the trips that Felipe VI makes to all the inaugurations of the Ibero-American presidents, degrading the government representation that accompanies to the monarch (no longer a minister, but a secretary of state). The consequence is that Sánchez or his Foreign Minister, who is the one who will accompany the King to Cuenca, end up being strangers in meetings with him, while Felipe VI, who has already entered into previous personal conversations with all the Latin American presidents and former presidents, becomes in an easy interlocutor for all those who attend the Ibero-American Summit. Sánchez is not the first president of the Government to skip an Ibero-American Summit, as this also happened with Zapatero in 2010 (at least he defended Aznar in the 2007 meeting against accusations of Chávez – the “why don’t you shut up” of Juan Carlos I –; it is difficult to think that in a similar situation today Sánchez would defend Rajoy), but it is a very bad sign for our diplomacy. (In 2016 Rajoy was not there, because it coincided with his inauguration). In two years, the 30th Ibero-American Summit will be held in Spain. The Executive that exists then will want to take advantage of it for the projection of the country, but the instrument may have lost much of its effectiveness due to not having kept it tuned. With attitudes like the one now carried out by Moncloa, it is not possible for Spain to have the “grand strategy” that it envies when seen in other countries. What could be healthy envy is, deep down, a guilty, if not foolish, envy.
#Valencia #Spain #Cuenca #Ecuador #Moncloas #tantrum #Kings #prominence
