During a meeting with the Ibero-American Secretary General, Chilean Andrés Allamand, Felipe VI confirmed his presence at the 28th Ibero-American Summit on 24 and 25 March.
The Spanish King will travel to the Dominican Republic for the fifth high-level meeting of the Ibero-American heads of state and government. He has been attending these since he ascended the throne. He already participated in the summit in Veracruz (Mexico) in 2014; Cartagena de Indias (Colombia) in 2016; Antigua (Guatemala), in 2018 and Andorra in 2021.
Allamand thanked the monarch for “the unwavering dedication of the Spanish crown to the Hispanic community over the past three decades,” the Ibero-American Secretariat General (Segib) said in a statement. Felipe will participate in the summit in Santo Domingo together with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Strengthen bi-regional relations
The appointment with the former Chilean foreign minister took place on Tuesday at the King’s office in the Zarzuela Palace. Allamand stressed “the unique opportunity” presented by the Ibero-American Summit to “strengthen bi-regional relations” between the EU and Latin America. Spain will also include this as one of its priorities during its Community presidency in the second half of the year. The high-level meeting in the Dominican Republic will be held under the motto “Together for a fair and sustainable Ibero-America”. The main topics of debate will be food security, the environment, digital rights and a new financial architecture.
First face-to-face summit after the pandemic
The forum was supposed to be held in November last year but was eventually postponed to March. It will be the first fully face-to-face summit since the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, as the last summit in Andorra had a hybrid format.
The King already met with the former Chilean foreign minister in Zarzuela in March last year, a few weeks after he took office as Ibero-American secretary general, replacing the Costa Rican Rebeca Grynspan. Allamand is the third head of the Segib since its creation in 2005, after Uruguayan Enrique Iglesias, who held the position until 2014, and Grynspan, currently responsible for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).
