The Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, during his speech at the panel on the Middle East held in Davos
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, closes his visit to Davos with a defence of Spain's foreign policy, stressing that it has weight, its own identity and is coherent. These characteristics have led Spain to be present in the main issues on the international agenda and have led other countries to demand Spain's presence in these matters.
With more than 60 heads of state, and representatives from 120 countries, Albares took advantage of this forum, which this year has chosen the theme "collaboration for the intelligent era," to address the most pressing issues in different panels such as "Diplomacy amid Disorder", where he participated with two key players in the Middle East: Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
Albares presented the impressions he brought back from his recent tour of Lebanon and Syria, as well as his vision of the ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon. And he did so in a speech in which he reflected that the voice of Spain is a voice with weight, with its own identity and coherence.
In his meetings, Albares also pointed out that Spain is a country that currently enjoys the greatest international weight in the EU in our history. In this regard, he recalled that, in the last three years alone, we have hosted the NATO summit at the most delicate time for Euro-Atlantic security; we have held the presidency of the European Union, which has served to bring Latin America and Europe closer together; and we have concluded the Migration and Asylum Pact, among other milestones.
New milestones
He also stated that these will be followed by others in 2025, derived from the fact that the United Nations has entrusted Spain with the International Conference on Financing for Development, which will be held in Seville in July; and the fact that all the countries of the Ibero-American community have awarded Spain the pro tempore secretariat for the organisation of the Ibero-American Summit in Spain in 2026.
All of this, together with the presence of Spaniards in key positions in the European Commission, NATO and the European Banking Authority, led the Spanish minister to conclude that Spain's foreign policy has an identity of its own that is present and claimed by other countries.
The Spanish minister has held various meetings, including meetings with his counterparts from Chile, Jordan, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the vice-president of Iran, among others, as well as a meeting with the Commissioner for Climate Change, Wopke Hoekstra. The minister's agenda also included a section on economic diplomacy, in which he was joined by senior representatives of Google and the CEO of the Open Society Foundation.
Non official translation
