This Monday, the Government of Argentina closed the open diplomatic crisis with Spain as a result of an exchange of reproaches between both countries. “For us it is a settled issue,” presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said at a press conference. The spokesperson considered that the incident “should not escalate beyond what already happened, which was simply an attack and a response to that barbarity that was said regarding the president of the nation, [Javier Milei]”.
The origin of the diplomatic clash was a comment by the Spanish Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, Óscar Puente, in a colloquium on Friday: [Milei] “It came out in I don’t know in what state and prior to the ingestion or after the ingestion of what substances.” The Office of the Argentine President responded that same night with a statement of repudiation in which he attacked the President of the Government of Spain: “(Pedro Sánchez) has more important problems to deal with, such as the accusations of corruption that fall on his wife ( Begoña Gómez), a matter that even led him to evaluate his resignation.”
The statement also attacked the internal policies of the Spanish Government with criticisms very similar to those expressed by the far-right party Vox, with which Milei has a great affinity. “Pedro Sánchez has endangered the unity of the Kingdom, agreeing with separatists and leading to the dissolution of Spain; He has put Spanish women at risk by allowing the illegal immigration of those who threaten their physical integrity; and he has endangered the middle class with his socialist policies that only bring poverty and death,” the text noted.
Disputed at a press conference about the data on which Milei was based to affirm that there is such a risk for Spanish women, Adorni did not know how to respond and asked the journalist to leave him her contact information so that he could send her the information when she obtained it.
Resignation request
The exchange of reproaches continued throughout the weekend from both sides of the Atlantic. From Buenos Aires, the Minister of the Interior, Guillermo Francos, asked for Puente’s resignation due to his “outrageous” statements. Milei’s predecessor in office, the Peronist Alberto Fernández, considered that he could have been bothered by Puente’s words, but he had no reason to be so offended: “In Argentina there is the largest community of Spanish immigrants in the world. “I deeply regret the reaction of the Argentine Government to a comment by a minister of the Spanish government.”
From Madrid, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its categorical rejection of “the unfounded terms of the statement issued by the Office of the President of the Argentine Republic, which do not correspond to the relations of two brother countries and peoples.” This Monday, PSOE spokesperson Esther Peña insisted on the idea that Milei’s response was “absolutely disproportionate.” “We see the pen of Vox in the writing of this paper, which would ratify what we have been denouncing for some time, that international ultra that functions as a society, we could say, of mutual aid,” she indicated at a press conference.
Milei plans to travel to Spain at the end of next week to participate on May 18 to support the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, in the launch of the ultra party’s European electoral campaign. Adorni avoided giving details about the presidential agenda because “it is not yet closed,” but he ruled out a bilateral meeting between the Argentine president and his Spanish counterpart. No communication with King Felipe VI has been confirmed so far, who attended Milei’s inauguration as head of state in Buenos Aires in December.
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