Madrid (EFE).- The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, will attend this Monday in Brussels his last international meeting before 23J, the EU-CELAC summit, in which he will have an intermittent presence since he will return to Spain in the middle of the afternoon for a PSOE event in Huesca and will return to the Belgian capital afterwards.
Sánchez traveled to Brussels this Sunday and was scheduled to remain there until Tuesday, when the EU-CELAC summit that will bring together European, Latin American and Caribbean leaders will end.
The head of the Executive has been the main organizer of this meeting and a year ago he expressed his wish that it be convened to coincide with the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU.
After he decided to advance the Spanish general elections to July 23, the Government made sure that although the summit coincided with the campaign for those elections, Sánchez would be present at it.
Hours before its start it has been known that after attending a business forum prior to the meeting and the opening of the summit, he will later travel to the Spanish city of Huesca (north) to lead an electoral act organized by the PSOE.
At the end, he will return to Brussels to participate on Tuesday in the final sessions of the international event and from the Belgian capital he will travel to San Sebastián (north) to be present at another meeting of his party for 23J.
This act will prevent him from attending the dinner offered to the delegations by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
It will be the ninth meeting between European and Latin American leaders and it is expected that the vast majority of the 27 heads of State or Government of the EU and the 33 of CELAC will be present.
The presidents of Mexico (Andrés Manuel López Obrador), Venezuela (Nicolás Maduro) and Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega) are part of the absent list, although the forecast is that their respective foreign ministers will attend.
Sánchez, in his double capacity as head of the Government and rotating president of the Council of the EU, wants to revitalize and strengthen ties between the two regions and advance in commercial agreements that he trusts can be sealed before December 31 .
Specifically, the agreement between the European Union and Mercosur (formed by Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) and the update of those that the Twenty-seven have with Mexico and Chile.
Spanish government sources assume that there are still pending fringes and, although their aspiration is that the way will be opened at the summit so that they can be signed this semester, if it is not possible they do trust that they will be finalized to approve the European elections in the spring 2024.
Strengthening cooperation for peace and stability, economic recovery, research, innovation, justice and security will be other issues that will be on the table.
Also the war in Ukraine, although differences persist on the way in which it will be referred to in the final declaration of the summit.