The decision of the mayoress of Barcelona, ??Ada Colau, announcing the “temporary suspension” of relations between the Barcelona council and the State of Israel and the twinning with the city of Tel Aviv, has generated all kinds of reactions that have shown the loneliness of the mayor with this decision. But the opinion of the central government was missing, which was produced this Friday by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares. How could it be otherwise, the head of Spanish diplomacy has attacked a “unilateral, almost personal” decision by Colau, which “harms Barcelona”, warned the minister, and which also goes against the vocation of Barcelona as an “open” city and “capital of the Mediterranean”.
During a conference by Albares at the Cercle d’Economia in Barcelona, ??the minister responded to a question from a colloquium attendee about the mayoress’s decision, evidencing the disappointment of Colau’s decision, taking into account the idiosyncrasies Barcelona, ??which is home to the headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean, one of the few forums where Israel and Palestine can sit at the same table.
“I do not believe that anything good is built, nor a dialogue, cutting, breaking or expelling. There are not so many places in the world where Israel and Palestine sit at the same table, as in the Union for the Mediterranean”, he pointed out. Albares, before highlighting the “value for the world and for Barcelona” of that body, a value that is “damaged” with “that decision of the mayoress”.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs summarized the position of the Government of Spain referring to the article that the PSC candidate for mayor, Jaume Collboni, published in the press after the decision of the mayoress. In said article, the former deputy mayor of Barcelona City Council points out that he contradicts Colau’s decision, promises to restore the agreement with Tel Aviv and highlights that “Barcelona, ??as the capital of the Union for the Mediterranean, wants to continue acting as a bridge between the countries, cultures and religions of our sea”.
The Government’s position in this regard “is clear in terms of betting on a two-State solution, that includes a Palestinian State, but that also presupposes the existence of a security State of Israel”, Albares resolved, who then also remarked the open vocation of Tel Aviv and of Israel. “I will always work so that Barcelona is as close as possible to Israel and Tel Aviv, so that it is a place of dialogue”, he concluded.
Albares went to Barcelona for a conference whose leitmotif was the role of ‘Spain and Europe in the face of new geopolitical challenges’, in which he described the European situation in the face of the war in Ukraine, the challenges facing Spain in the face of the next rotating presidency of the EU and Europe’s diplomatic and trade capacities with Latin America and Africa.
Regarding the war in Ukraine, the minister pointed out that the conflict with Russia has made us discover “our vulnerabilities, which we thought no longer existed in Spain and the EU”, but also that “solidarity and unity between the European partners, with allies like the US.” It is the path to follow, a path discovered during the pandemic “and that the crisis in Ukraine confirms even more.”
In this area, the minister has also denounced the existence of a “war for the story”, in reference to “a Russian story about the reason for the war and who is to blame”, against which he has indicated that the one in Ukraine “is one man’s war, and it is maintained by one man”, a reference to Putin. Albares has lamented that fundamental humanitarian rights “are violated every day” in Ukraine by Russia and has bet that those who commit them “will have to pay for it.”
Regarding relations with Africa, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has focused on the turn of Spain’s foreign policy with Morocco, with respect to the Sahara. Albares has justified this turn by the need for a country like Spain to prioritize good relations with the countries with which it shares a border. The minister cited the Spanish-French Barcelona summit held in Barcelona last month and the recent high-level meeting with Morocco as an example.
“In diplomacy there are few rules, it is more an art than a science, but there is something that is almost a rule: having the best possible relations with the neighboring countries with which you share land borders”, he explained, before concluding that “Spanish history cannot be a history of the crises with Morocco”. In addition, the minister has praised the good results of this new stage of relations with Morocco with some figures: the decrease in migratory flows to the Canary Islands and Andalusia compared to the increase (by 150%) in other areas of the Mediterranean; the dismantling of 10 jihadist networks in just six months, or the high commercial exchange with the neighboring country (12,000 million, a record of exports). This new stage is what has allowed customs to be open in Melilla and, for the first time in history, in Ceuta.
