President Alberto Fernandez travels to Europe this Monday to begin a brief tour of Spain and Germanywhere he will meet with the leaders of those countries and will have a round with businessmen to seek a higher level of investment in the country, as well as promote Argentine exports in those markets.
The President will depart at 5 this Monday from the Ezeiza airport on an Aerolineas Argentinas charter flight, accompanied by the Foreign Minister santiago cafiero; the Secretary for International Economic Relations of the Foreign Ministry, Cecilia Todesca; and the spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti, as part of the entourage confirmed so far.
According to official sources told Télam, the Argentine president will hold a new bilateral meeting on Tuesday with the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, who was in Buenos Aires in June of last year; and he will also meet King Felipe VI.
Meanwhile, between Wednesday and Thursday, Alberto Fernández will be received in Germany by Olaf Scholzthe Social Democrat who months ago replaced Angela Merkel in the German government.
The tour of the Argentine head of state takes place at a time when Europe is still going through the consequences of the war in ukraineso the subject will be an exclusive axis of the conversations that it maintains with the authorities of those countries.
In those countries, Fernández also plans to lead a round of meetings with businessmen in search of a higher level of investment and to promote Argentine exports in those markets.
In addition, as pro-tempore president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Argentine president has the goal of encouraging dialogue with the European Union bloc.
Crossed by the complex conditions left by the war, Argentina also seeks to show itself as a provider of food and energy for the Old Continent.
The trip was confirmed last Thursday by Cerruti in his usual press round, where he specified that the president would visit Spain and Germany to meet “with heads of state and businessmen.”
The Secretary of Communication pointed out that it is a “trip that was scheduled” and on which the Foreign Ministry headed by Cafiero is finalizing the details of the official agenda at this time.
In Europe, the President will hold meetings “with heads of state to, like all trips of this nature, continue with Argentina’s insertion in the world, to carry out conversations on the international situation – the one that Europe is going through in particular -, to get investments for Argentina and continue on this path of growth,” Cerruti said on that occasion.
The spokeswoman confirmed that, among the destinations of the tour that will start on Monday and will last until next Thursdayare Spain and Germany.
In June of last year, the Spanish president, Sánchez, made an official visit to Buenos Aires, during which he pointed out that Argentina and Spain have a “unique opportunity to understand each other and be able to advance” in bilateral relations and stressed that Spanish companies “have all the possibilities to continue investing” in the country.
Participating then in a meeting with Sánchez and businessmen from both countries, Fernández called for making ties “even more solid” and “joining efforts on both sides of the Atlantic.”
In addition, Fernández thanked Sánchez for his country’s support in the debt renegotiation process that, some time later, Argentina closed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
With the German Scholz, meanwhile, it will be the first official meeting after his assumption in December of last year, after 16 years in Merkel’s power, but they already met informally during the meeting they had at the last G20 summit.
“We must continue to strengthen the bilateral relationship between Argentina and Germany. We must work together in favor of a more egalitarian world,” the President wrote on Twitter when the German took office.
According to sources from the Presidency, in addition to the visits to Spain and Germany, the tour could include France to hold a bilateral meeting with the recently re-elected President Emmanuel Macron, before Fernández returns to Buenos Aires, scheduled for next Friday, although that scale was not officially confirmed.
In this sense, the Argentine President had agreed with his French counterpart to a visit that would take place after the elections that took place in April in the European country, and that is why there is speculation about a possible stopover of the trip in Paris.
It is that the close victory that Macron obtained in the recent ballot against Marine Le Pen forced the French president to focus on internal negotiations to form a government, which could complicate the possibilities of a bilateral meeting with Fernández.
In May of last year, Fernández visited France as part of a tour of several European countries and received Macron’s support in Argentina’s renegotiation of its debt with the IMF.
