Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard will not attend the Ibero-American Summit on behalf of Mexico and instead the Undersecretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, Maximiliano Reyes, will attend, sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) informed EFE on Tuesday.
The XXVIII Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will be held this Friday and Saturday in Santo Domingo, will not be attended by the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who rarely travels outside the country and does not usually attend this type of meeting. .
Ebrard’s absence is surprising, since he is the one who usually represents Mexico in various international meetings.
The Mexican foreign minister headed the Mexican delegation that attended the VII Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in January, held in Argentina.
Ebrard, who aspires to be the candidate of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) for the 2024 presidential elections and to succeed López Obrador, presented his book on Monday "The way of Mexico"in which he takes a tour of his career and shows his forecasts for the future of the country, as part of his already active electoral campaign.
Unlike Mexico, which sends a second-line official, about 14 heads of state or government will attend the Ibero-American Summit.
Among them are the King of Spain, Felipe VI; the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez; the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro; the one from Chile, Gabriel Boric; the one from Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, and the one from Argentina, Alberto Fernández.
The high representative for foreign affairs of the European Union, Josep Borrell, will also be present.
Among the absences, in addition to the Mexican ones, are those of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and that of the Salvadoran, Nayib Bukele
The fact that López Obrador does not attend this summit prevents him from meeting Sánchez and Felipe VI, at a time when relations between Mexico and Spain are not going through their best moment.
In December 2022, one day after the foreign ministers of both countries met in Mexico City, the Mexican president assured that relations continue "pause"contradicting the version of the Spanish Government, and attacked the king again.