The Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, is attending the Ibero-American Summit in Ecuador, to be held in the city of Cuenca from Wednesday to Friday. Under the banner of “innovation, inclusion, and sustainability”, the meeting agenda focuses on security, human mobility, university degree equivalence and financing for development.
Albares, attending as the highest Government representative in the delegation headed by the King, is confident that the Summit will achieve concrete results on issues such as innovation, inclusion and sustainability, as well as the core areas raised during the Ecuadorian pro tempore Secretariat: security, mobility and youth employability.
This Wednesday evening, the minister will take part in the Ministers for Foreign Affairs dinner, organised by his Ecuadorian counterpart, Gabriela Sommerfeld. On Thursday morning, Albares will participate in the Ibero-American Ministers for Foreign Affairs Meeting, and in the afternoon he will attend the Ibero-American Summit opening ceremony at the Pumpapongo Museum and the opening dinner hosted by the Ecuadorian President. On Friday, he will accompany H.M. King Felipe VI at the plenary session of Heads of State and Government, and will then take part in the closing press conference with the Ecuadorian President and the Ibero-American Secretary General.
Pro tempore Secretariat
On Friday, Minister Albares will accompany H.M. King Felipe VI at the Secretariat pro tempore handover ceremony, which will be transferred from Ecuador to Spain until the next Summit, to be held in our country in 2026. Spain was unanimously elected to host the next Summit. Over the next two years, our nation will be responsible for organising Ibero-American ministerial conferences, as well as the meetings of Ministers for Foreign Affairs and National Coordinators and other preparatory fora and meetings.
As a more general objective for the 2026 Ibero-American Summit, the minister has proposed the “synchronisation” of the Summit system with the needs, expectations and challenges of the present and the immediate future of Ibero-America, to be structured around three core areas: political, thematic and institutional.
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