The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, expressed this morning his surprise at how the Popular Party is conducting its relations with Spain’s neighboring countries, particularly with France.
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His comment comes after the publication of an article by former president Mariano Rajoy that questioned the French nationality of some of the players on the national team facing ‘la roja’ today in the World Cup semifinals.
For Albares, who spoke yesterday with his French counterpart after several ministers harshly reacted to Rajoy’s article, “it is very serious to decide who is a citizen of a country and who is not based on skin color. It conceals things that are not only hurtful but very dangerous.”
The minister maintains that the PP “is an obstacle to Spain’s foreign policy”
Albares, in an interview granted to Ser, pointed out that the incident triggered with France adds to others involving “Morocco, where the PP dreams of returning to Perejil; Algeria or Mexico where they have tried to poison relations.” “They are,” Albares added, “an obstacle to Spain’s foreign policy. I have to systematically explain to our partners that the PP does not represent Spain’s foreign policy.”
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Furthermore, the minister recalled that precisely these days two important milestones in Spanish foreign policy will take place: today the agreement is signed in Brussels by which the Gibraltar fence disappears definitively, and on the 20th the Prime Minister travels to Algeria, a trip that restores normality in relations between Spain and this country, strained since the government of Pedro Sánchez adopted the new doctrine on the Sahara, the former colony abandoned to its fate by Spain during the last years of Francoism.
Albares says he is unaware of what has happened to the Barcelona journalist Ali Lmrabet detained in Morocco
On the other hand, in the interview the minister was asked what news he has about the journalist Ali Lmrabet, resident in Barcelona, who was detained in Tangier last Sunday. Albares said he was unaware of the case and that he will be informed about it.
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