MADRID (AP) — Colombian President Gustavo Petro begins a state visit to Spain on Wednesday to seek support for his peace plan for the South American country, and to discuss economic investment and migration policy.
Spanish King Felipe VI and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez greeted Petro in Madrid. He is scheduled to address lawmakers at Spain’s Parliament and to attend a state dinner hosted by the Spanish royals.
Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist leader, is a backer of Petro, an ex-rebel who became Colombia’s first leftist president last year.
One of the main topics on his agenda is his peace process with the National Liberation Army (ELN), a guerrilla organization still active after the dissolution of FARC, a group which spent decades pursuing rebellion.
Last week, ELN militants killed nine Colombian soldiers in an attack, complicating efforts by Petro to negotiate a lasting peace.
The Colombian leader seeks Spain’s full support for his plan, which he will likely explicitly obtain from Sánchez, according to reports from high-ranked officials in the European country.
Starting in July, Spain is set to hold the European Union’s rotating presidency, a six-month period in which Madrid aims to revitalize Europe’s relations with Latin America. That includes plans by Spain to hold a summit between Latin America and the EU in the early days of its presidency.
Almost 500,000 Colombians, a third of whom hold dual nationality with Spain, reside in the European country.
The visit to Europe comes two weeks after Petro traveled to Washington to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden amid deep differences on drug policy and Venezuela.
Spain recently announced a collaboration with the United States and Canada on establishing migrant centers in Latin America to facilitate orderly and safe migration.
“It is a step forward for Spain, which is taking the initiative regarding a certain lack of action by Europe in this matter,” Anna Ayuso, senior researcher for Latin America at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB), told The Associated Press.
Spain is the leading European recipient of Latin American migration and in recent months it has sponsored specific initiatives to accept migrants from American countries in humanitarian situations. One of these initiatives was offering nationality to 100 Nicaraguan opponents exiled by Daniel Ortega in February 2023.
“There is a shift of strategy from emphasizing containment, as promoted by (former U.S. President Trump), to facilitating orderly migration and preventing irregular migration, which, in the end, is encouraged international crime,” said Ayuso.
Petro’s is the only state visit that Spain is set to host this year. He will sit down with Sánchez on Thursday. On Friday, Petro will visit Salamanca University, where he studied.
Petro is also expected to push his economic agenda, particularly in green energy and digitization.
“Petro wants to present Colombia before Europe not only as a country committed to peace but also a stable one that deserves the trust of investors,” Ayuso said.
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Joseph Wilson contributed to this report from Barcelona.
