Four days before President Javier Milei returns to Madrid, where he will travel to receive an award, Spain does not confirm whether it will make available the security operation that it did provide in mid-May. when the Argentine president was here to participate in a Vox event.
The diplomatic tension that has not yet healed between both countries – after Spain withdrew its ambassador in Buenos Aires when Javier Milei refused to apologize for having called the wife of President Pedro Sánchez “corrupt” – leaves the question open.
Clarion consulted the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from where they reported that That decision “will be communicated to the Argentine government.”
“The conditions of a visit are presented to the country through diplomatic channels,” they clarified from the Spanish Foreign Ministry.
And they confirmed that, along with the presence of Javier Milei, there will be between three or four diplomatic visits planned for this week in Spain.
Silence reigns on this issue at the Argentine embassy in Madrid.
Pedro Sánchez is not aware of Milei’s trip
In the first interview he gave after the elections to the European Parliament in which his party, the PSOE, ceased to be the Spanish force with the most presence in the European Parliament – it was surpassed by the PP -, the president Sánchez confessed that he was not aware of Javier Milei’s upcoming trip to Madrid.
“I am not aware”, were the words of Pedro Sánchez.
On May 17 Milei landed at the Torrejón de Ardoz air base, the airport 22 kilometers from the center of Madrid that the kings of Spain and the head of the government usually use for their official trips.
During the three days in which Milei presented a book he wrote two years ago, he met with Spanish businessmen and was the star speaker at the Viva de Vox festival, the Argentine president He was escorted by Spanish State security, although it was never entirely clear whether his presence in Spain was a personal visit or not.
Hours before the arrival of President Javier Milei to Madrid, the Casa Rosada stated that it was not a personal visit and that, therefore, the travel expenses were borne by the national State.
However, in the corridors of the Argentine embassy in Spain, they claimed at the same time that they could not provide details about Milei’s agenda in Madrid because it was a “private trip for the president.”
“We will analyze what type of visit”
“We will analyze in detail what type of visit Javier Milei wants to make to Spain,” said the Spanish Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, when he had already recalled the ambassador from Buenos Aires, María Jesús Alonso Jiménez, with no return date in sight.
The Spanish chancellor considered “an assault on the good faith and hospitality” of Spain Milei’s statements on the stage of the Vox event, in which he fired against socialism and its leaders and, without naming her, alluded to Pedro Sánchez’s wife as “corrupt.”
Begoña Gómez, the wife of the Spanish president, is charged with alleged influence peddling, possible business corruption and hypothetical prevarication. The Spanish judge investigating her summoned her to testify on July 5, but the European Prosecutor’s Office asked her to take charge of part of the case to investigate whether European funds were involved in the alleged crime.
Offended hospitality
“On its first visit, the Spanish State He put all the necessary means to welcome him with the hospitality and dignity that the position deserves. that Javier Milei represents,” Minister Albares said in May, two days after the Argentine president left Spain.
Albares stressed that “it was allowed to land and take off from the Torrejón base, offering security guarantees,” the chancellor listed. AND The response to that good faith and hospitality was a frontal attack with insults. to our institutions.”
Milei’s award
Javier Milei confirmed months ago that on Friday, June 21, he will be in Madrid to receive the prize from the Juan de Mariana Institute “for his defense of the ideas of freedom.”
“This year the winner is Javier Milei because, from our point of view, Javier has made history,” he told Clarion the director of Juan de Mariana, Manuel Llamas.
As is the custom of the institute that he has directed since August of last year, throughout the week there will be conferences, meetings and even a book fair on liberal theories.
The closure is Liberty Dinner in which the prize is awarded that, this year, President Javier Milei will take home.
