This Sunday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, embarked on a tour of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Mexico, just over six months before the summit called in Madrid on November 4 and 5 with which Spain wants to vindicate the role of the Ibero-American community in a world where the law of the strongest has prevailed over multilateral organizations and the international legal order. Puerto Rico, an associated State of the United States, is not a full member of said community, but has participated in its summits since 2001; while the presence in Madrid of the Dominican Luis Abinader and, especially, the Mexican Claudia Sheinbaum is key to the success of the event.
The tour will conclude on Sunday in Mexico, where Albares wants to relaunch bilateral relations, frozen since in 2019 the previous president of the country, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, sent a letter to the King of Spain demanding that he apologize for the excesses of the conquerors and he remained silent in response, which the Mexican president interpreted as an affront. Albares already visited Mexico in March 2022 with the aim of unblocking the situation, but then López Obrador insisted on “pausing” the relationship with Spain instead of accelerating it, as the minister requested.
The panorama now is very different. The words of Felipe VI on March 16, when he recognized that there was “a lot of abuse” and “ethical controversies” in the colonization of America by the Spanish conquerors, have allowed a situation to be defused that led to Sheinbaum not inviting the King to his inauguration in 2024. The Mexican president set foot in Spain for the first time on the 18th to participate in the progressive summit held in Barcelona, where she met with the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez. “There is no diplomatic crisis, there never has been. What is very important is that the strength of the native peoples for our homeland is recognized,” Sheinbaum said, downplaying the problems with Spain.
But there is still a last push to normalize relations, which Albares will try to give on Wednesday in Mexico. There he will meet with Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco, with whom he will sign the minutes of the Spain-Mexico Bilateral Commission, will give a conference at the National Autonomous University, will participate in several events at the Spanish Chamber of Commerce and the National Museum of Anthropology and will inaugurate the exhibition half of the worldat whose exhibition in Madrid the King spoke the key words for reconciliation between the two countries. He will also make a floral offering at the tomb of Lázaro Cárdenas, the Mexican president who welcomed the Spanish Republicans after the Civil War, and will learn about the implementation of the Democratic Memory Law at the Spanish consulate.
The corollary of this process could be a visit by the King to Mexico. Sheinbaum invited him by letter to the North American soccer World Cup that opens on June 11 in Mexico City and in whose first phase Spain will play against Uruguay on June 26 in Guadalajara, capital of the State of Jalisco. Felipe VI thanked the invitation, but it has not yet been determined whether he will finally attend.
In San Juan, the first stage of the tour, Albares will meet with Puerto Rican authorities, will give a lecture on Spanish – the island’s sign of identity – at the Inter-American University and will speak at a business forum. In Santo Domingo, he will participate in a meeting with businessmen, visit the Metropolitan Center of the National Institute of Vocational Training, financed by Spanish cooperation, and meet with his counterpart Roberto Álvarez.
In addition to the Madrid summit, one of the points that the head of Spanish diplomacy will discuss in his conversations is the election of the replacement of the Portuguese António Guterres as Secretary General of the UN when his mandate ends, on December 31. Spain wants it to be a Latin American woman, but there are two candidates: the former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet and the former Ibero-American secretary Rebeca Grynspan. And the division of the Latino vote could thwart both.
