Pedro Sánchez culminates his tour of Latin America with the commitment to a greater relationship with the EU

The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, ended this Friday, August 26, his tour of three Latin American countries: Colombia, Ecuador and Honduras, in the midst of the geopolitical context and all the consequences generated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Given this situation, the strengthening of ties with the region is increasingly evident. “The European Union is obliged to refocus its framework of relations,” stressed Sánchez. In his opinion, the region is increasingly influential and “you cannot understand Spain or Europe without that look towards and through Latin America.”

In his meetings with the regional leaders, he wanted to demonstrate Spain’s commitment to achieving closeness of all kinds between the European Union (EU) and Latin America, an objective that Sánchez has repeated throughout his tour.

Hence the relevance it has given to the EU-Latin America and Caribbean summit that Spain will organize during its presidency of the EU in the second half of 2023 and which has not been held since 2015.

Additionally, Sánchez has described his tour as a “success” and “living proof” of the renewed commitment of Spain that has supported the leftist politics of Honduras and Colombia.

“We are a bridge between these two realities, between these two political spaces that share a commitment to democracy, human rights and international legality, and we have the firm intention of following that path,” said Sánchez.

The President of the Spanish Government also expressed in his last stop on the tour that he has been able to verify “the strength, resilience and dynamism” of the region in a global context full of uncertainties and in which he said that “Latin America and the Caribbean They are determined to build a more just and inclusive future.”

In Honduras, orderly migration was the central axis

It had been 23 years since a Spanish Prime Minister had visited Honduras. In Tegucigalpa, the capital, and the last stop of his tour this Friday, he had a meeting with the left-wing president Xiomara Castro to ratify his cooperation with a more orderly migration, one of the three persistent problems in Honduras, in addition to violence and the tough economic situation.

Both highlighted the importance of the migration flow management agreement signed in 2021 and the fight against forced migration. Honduras is one of the historical destinations of Spanish cooperation.

The agreement contains a pilot project that is underway and that consists of a circular migration. A first group of 250 Honduran workers have traveled to Spain this year to work on specific agricultural campaigns such as fruit picking and, at the end, they return to their country.

This Friday, August 26, Sánchez recalled that commitment and did so by emphasizing that he will double the number of temporary workers in future campaigns, as he had already announced at the last Summit of the Americas held in the United States.

Castro not only thanked the ratification of this pact, he also did so with the Spanish aid received to deal with the pandemic and in which the European country donated 280,000 doses of vaccines.

The Zelaya Castro family also signed other agreements

The president is the wife of the ousted Manuel Zelaya, president of Honduras between 2006 and 2009 in what the so-called Truth Commission described in its report as a coup d’état, however, the same Commission affirmed that the former president violated constitutional norms to establish a new regime.

Both Zelaya and his son Héctor, in a clear sign of their return to power, were part of the Honduran delegation for other agreement signings. One of them in health matters to strengthen the Honduran health system.

Sánchez then had a meeting with Spanish businessmen present in Honduras and representatives of Spanish cooperation who also carry out their work in this country.

Ecuador’s message: prioritize the relationship with Spain over other alternatives

Spain is Ecuador’s main trading partner within the EU and the fifth worldwide, as well as being the second partner in foreign direct investment. Consequently, the meeting between Sánchez and President Guillermo Lasso this Thursday was marked by a business approach and more investments.

The Spanish Secretary of State for Commerce, Xiana Méndez, assured that “there is chemistry and connection” between the two leaders once Lasso stated that he will give priority to the relationship with Spain over other alternatives.

The President of the Spanish Government ratified the commitment of Spanish companies in Ecuador and opted to increase these investments given the trust that exists in this country: “Invest -he said- where you trust” and emphasized the framework of legal certainty that created Ecuador to allow foreign investment.

During the announcement made by Sánchez and Lasso to agree on a new bilateral investment treaty between the two countries, Méndez said that he will consider “a resounding success” if it can enter into force within a year. In fact, Lasso expects him to be ready to sign in September.

The official recalled that Spain is the second country with the highest direct investment in Ecuador, although she assured that it is “the first in qualitative terms”, since in 2020 it exceeded 1,793 million dollars, with a generation of more than 20,000 jobs in different sectors that generated by more than a hundred Spanish companies in Ecuador.

“The pending issue is to diversify Ecuadorian exports to Spain, which is still somewhat anchored in these traditional products,” and where he believes that Spain and its companies can contribute to it, explained the Secretary of State for Trade of Spain.

For his part, the Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investments and Fisheries of Ecuador, Julio José Prado, indicated that the “forecast for this year is that the commercial exchange between the two countries exceeds 1,500 million dollars, much higher than expected.” we had before the pandemic.

Prado stressed that “bilateral trade has grown steadily since the trade agreement between Ecuador and the EU was signed five years ago, which has allowed products such as shrimp, bananas, tuna, flowers and chocolate to be consolidated in the Spanish market,” among others. others.

Sánchez on Colombia: pain and tragedy of the conflict cannot be normalized

Sánchez asked in Colombia that the pain and tragedy during decades of conflict not be normalized or forgotten. The president received the Final Report of the Truth Commission, which speaks of 500,000 dead and more than eight million victims during an armed conflict that lasted 60 years and that also left 50,770 kidnappings and 7.7 million forced displaced.

Colombia, he said, “has just launched a future where peace is possible” and remarked that “the government of Gustavo Petro and (Vice President) Francia Márquez is a government that recognizes the pain caused by violence and also the oblivion due to the denial of “.

And in clear support for the new wave of the Latin American left, Sánchez quoted one of the most famous phrases of Vice President Márquez, claiming that “living tasty is living in peace.”

During his visit to Bogotá, Pedro Sánchez offered his country to host a possible peace process between the Colombian Government and the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) -broken with the previous Government of Iván Duque-, a proposal that the president of the South American country, Gustavo Petro, conditioned the consensus between the negotiating parties to decide whether to stay in Cuba or do it in other countries.

“We offer ourselves to the Colombian government to help in everything that I think is common sense to achieve peace and, therefore, if these peace talks can be hosted in Spain, Spain would be willing and offers to host them,” he stressed. .

Both presidents showed their total agreement to promote leftist policies and face global challenges such as the climate emergency. And he highlighted the potential that still exists for a greater presence of companies from each country in the other.

In the three countries where Sánchez was, the message of total commitment from Spain to strengthen relations between the European Union and Latin America was constant. For him, the relationship between Spain and the EU with the Latin American region “is strategic”, and for this reason she promised to place it “in its rightful place”.

With EFE and local media