The Spanish president is the first European leader to be received by the newly elected Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president in this South American country
Pedro Sánchez began a tour of Latin America this Wednesday that will take him to Colombia, Ecuador and Honduras for three days. Bogota, his first stop, is not trivial. The Spanish president is the first European leader to receive the newly elected Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president in this South American country.
The key to a stop with such haste by Sánchez in Colombia is twofold: the new political cycle of progressivism in Latin America and the investment plan that Petro has promised and in which Spanish companies trust to have a leading role if not the main.
On a political level, the Spanish president highlighted his harmony with Petro and insisted on his willingness to build bridges between the lefts on both sides of the Atlantic. Furthermore, it offered Spain as the venue for the announced negotiations between the Government of Bogotá and the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last great insurgent movement after the signing of peace between the state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. (FARC) in 2016. In any case, the proposal seems complicated to materialize since the Colombian guerrillas of the extreme left have always defended Havana as a meeting point. Of course, the Spanish government could accept as a mediating party, a role that it did not play with the FARC during the mandate of Mariano Rajoy.
economic relationship
The interpretation at the economic level does not admit ambiguities either in this trip of the Prime Minister. Representatives of a dozen companies have traveled on the official plane of the President of the Government, including Indra, OHL, Navantia and Sacyr. “Colombia is a first-rate economic partner,” said the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, also present on the tour.
There are currently 800 Spanish companies operating in Colombia, a number that is expected to rise significantly with the investment plan committed by Petro during the election campaign. And the Spanish and European presence, Sánchez acknowledged, will serve to counteract the growing influence of Russia and China in a continent with which Spain maintains social, economic and cultural ties like no other country in the Western world.
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