After passing through Brazil, the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), arrived in Santiago this Thursday on an official trip to meet with President Gabriel Boric and preside with him at an event commemorating International Women’s Day.
The Spanish Air Force plane in which Sánchez traveled along with the rest of his delegation, which includes the Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, landed at the Arturo Merino Benítez airport in the Chilean capital at 8:15 p.m.
Sánchez traveled to Chile from Sao Paulo, where he participated in an eminently economic day as part of his visit to Brazil during which he met with the country’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The plane in which Pedro Sánchez arrived in Brazil for a three-day visit. Photo: André Coelho/EFE
According to the agency EFEthe start of his agenda in the Chilean capital will also be economic in nature because it will begin first thing on Friday with the inauguration of a forum with companies from Spain and Chile.
After placing a wreath at the monument to Bernardo O’Higgins, the president of the Spanish government will travel to the La Moneda Palace for the meeting with Gabriel Boric, with whom he will also preside over the signing of several bilateral agreements and will appear at a press conference.
Both will then travel to one of the city’s neighborhoods to preside over a joint event to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8.
With this trip, Sánchez returns to Boric the visit he made to him in Madrid last July, and it is the second time that the Spanish president has been received at La Moneda.
The first was in the summer of 2018, shortly after becoming president, and he met with the then Head of State Sebastián Piñera, who recently died in a helicopter accident in Lake Ranco.
Boric and Sánchez will preside over the signing of various agreements, and one of them will involve the renewal and updating of the bilateral strategic alliance that was signed in 2013 to incorporate new priorities such as environmental sustainability, gender equality or “feminist diplomacy.”
Sánchez’s absence in Spain has not been without controversy
It is a coincidence that the day on which the Justice Commission of the Spanish Congress gave its approval to the amnesty law for Catalan independentists coincided with the image of Pedro Sánchez protected with a helmet to descend to the works of a metro line of São Paulo that is being built by the Spanish company Acciona.
But that image, according to the aforementioned media, can perfectly symbolize part of what the president of the Spanish government has achieved after having overcome the doubts of the Junts independentists to carry out this law and what it may imply thinking about obtaining support. sufficient for future initiatives such as Budgets.
At a particularly difficult time due to the Koldo case – a scandal over the illegal collection of commissions for the sale of masks – Sánchez has obtained a measure of protection for his mandate, something that ensured that he was not at risk no matter what happened, even if a hypothetical A total break with Junts will cast doubt on the future of the legislature.
There were no statements from the head of the Spanish government during his visit to Brazil regarding this law that has kept the Executive and the PSOE in tension for weeks.
Sánchez focused his interventions on talking about the opportunities for Spanish companies in Latin America and the need to continue fighting to achieve another agreement, that of the European Union and Mercosur.
He also took the opportunity to show his chest for the leadership of Spanish companies, which he has exemplified in the works commissioned from Acciona to build the subway in that Brazilian city and in which he has been seen wearing a reflective vest and helmet.
Pedro Sánchez during his visit to the works of the Orange Line of the Sao Paulo metro. Photo: Isaac Fontana/EFE
“You’ll see”
The Spanish president has avoided making public comments about an agreement that he already took for granted hours before it saw the light, both in the press conference he offered in Brasilia with the Brazilian president, Luiz Inázio Lula da Silva, and in a conversation informal with journalists covering his official trip.
“You’ll see,” he simply stated before confirming the agreement when asked about the details of the changes that had to be made to the text to get Junts’ yes and overcome his reluctance regarding the possibility that the A measure of grace could be applied to all those involved in the ‘procés’ and specifically to former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium since the illegal referendum of 2017.
Sánchez had and does not have any doubts. Puigdemont will be amnestied. At least that is what he affirms and what he took for granted when he guaranteed that the text that Junts overturned allowed all the protagonists of the ‘procés’ to benefit and also when just hours before the mystery was cleared up he considered that the changes would give more guarantees still.
This is what the Spanish Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, has also come to say, that the will is that all the people involved in the independence process will be amnestied, although when asked specifically about Puigdemont he did not want to refer to anyone in particular and has referred to the judges.
If there is no other opportunity beforehand, Sánchez would publicly evaluate the agreement at the press conference he plans to offer in Santiago on Friday with President Boric, in the last stage of his trip to Latin America.
But Sánchez’s entourage highlights the President of the Government’s satisfaction at seeing what he had stated come true even in the most difficult moments of the negotiation with Junts, that there would finally be a law.
He is aware that the conservative PP, the main opposition party, is going to redouble its offensive, both because of the amnesty and the Koldo case, but they assure that this is something that they took for granted.
“Now, let’s keep rowing,” he comments to EFE one of his collaborators. He believes he has enough rowers for the next few shovels to get him to approve the budgets.