He stood in front of a cloud of cameras and microphones that were milling around the doors of the Fira de Barcelona awaiting his arrival. The president of Mexico has highlighted the importance of the summit, she has said she is “happy” on her first visit to Europe so far in her mandate and has cited Abraham Lincoln at the doors of the official event, conceived as a space to propose alternatives to the challenges posed by the rise of the extreme right and attacks on the world order. “Democracy is the power of the people, by the people and for the people,” he stated this Saturday. Immediately afterwards, journalists asked him if the diplomatic crisis with Spain is over. “There is no diplomatic crisis, there never has been. What is very important is that the strength of the indigenous peoples for our homeland is recognized,” he assured.
A half hour later, around ten in the morning, the moment occurred that had caused enormous expectation on both sides of the Atlantic in the days prior to the summit, which brought together more than a dozen left-wing world leaders. The President of the Spanish Government, , shook the president’s hand and both posed smiling in front of the cameras. It is the first high-level meeting between the authorities of both countries in eight years, after the apology sent in 2019 by the former president, Sheinbaum’s predecessor and mentor, to the King of Spain for the abuses committed during the conquest.
The image represents after a long paralysis in the political relationship and an arduous diplomatic process to normalize contacts. In the brief exchange between both leaders during the official reception, Sheinbaum made a quick gesture with his hands, indicating that they would talk later about the bilateral relationship. “We share a great agreement on how to continue strengthening our very special cultural, economic and social ties,” Sánchez published on his X account at the end of the summit.
Around noon, both leaders held a closed-door meeting on the sidelines of the summit of progressive leaders that lasted for just over half an hour, according to sources from the Mexican Government telling this newspaper. “We talked about how important the recognition of what the Conquest was, the arrival of the Spanish, is for Mexico,” Sheinbaum said at the end of the meeting and added that both Governments will continue working on the recognition of the native peoples.
“There has been a rapprochement between both the president and the King himself and the important thing is to continue dialogue,” he added regarding Felipe VI’s statements last March, in which he acknowledged that there was “a lot of abuse and ethical controversies.” Sheinbaum said at the end of the meeting that they talked about intensifying cultural exchanges and cooperation in renewable energies. The president has ruled out, for the moment, a meeting with the monarch, before participating in a meal with the other Latin American leaders who gathered at the official event.
The Mexican president has also offered that the next summit of progressive leaders, an initiative that emerged in 2024 on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, be held in Mexico. Sánchez has echoed the leader’s words and confirmed that the next edition of the meeting will be held in Mexican soil in 2027, in a new gesture of rapprochement between both leaders and in what the Spanish leader has described as “great news.” “I invited him to be there next year because we are going to have this same summit in Mexico,” Sheinbaum stressed.
The president maintained the same speech in her initial speech during the summit in Barcelona. “I come on behalf of a people who are in solidarity even in adversity, deeply human, who resist individualism, who reject discrimination and refuse with dignity to look at the other with contempt,” he said. “I come from a people that recognizes its origin in the great original cultures, those that were silenced, enslaved and plundered, but that were never defeated, because there are memories that are not conquered and roots that are never uprooted.”
“I come to remember that Mexico has known how to uphold its principles even in solitude, that it raised its voice against the blockade of Cuba in 1962 when others remained silent, that to this day we believe, speaking of that small island in the Caribbean, that no people is small, but rather large and stoic when it defends its sovereignty and the right to a full life,” he said. The Mexican president has proposed adopting a joint declaration between the participating countries against a possible military intervention against Cuba, in the midst of the energy blockade decreed by Trump and the pressure that Washington has been exerting on the island for three months. “May dialogue and peace prevail,” he asked.
He has also returned to a proposal he made at the last G-20 meeting last year: allocate 10% of global spending on weapons to a global reforestation program. “Instead of sowing war, let’s sow peace, let’s sow life,” he urged.
In the face of turbulence due to war conflicts and the crisis of the multilateral system, Sheinbaum has defended the principles that have governed Mexico’s foreign policy for more than a century: “Respect for the self-determination of peoples, non-intervention, the peaceful resolution of disputes, the rejection of the use of force, the legal equality of States, respect for human rights and the permanent struggle for peace,” he said. “In a world wounded by war, by inequality, these democratic principles continue to be a contribution from Mexico to the people of the world, as a symbol of hope.”
“Democracy means elevating love above hate, cultivating generosity instead of greed, fraternity above war,” commented Sheinbaum, without directly referring to the foreign policy of the United States, with which it shares a border of more than 3,000 kilometers. “It means that life cannot be bought, nor can the freedom and dignity of the people,” the president added and called for respect for diversity and solidarity to build a political alternative based on progressivism for the coming years.
