(Buenos Aires) The diplomatic crisis between Argentina and Spain, triggered by remarks by Argentine President Javier Milei about the wife of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, worsened on Tuesday with Madrid’s announcement of the definitive withdrawal from his ambassador from Buenos Aires.
“I am announcing to you that we are withdrawing our ambassador from Buenos Aires,” declared the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs José Manuel Albares, after the council of ministers, recalling that she had already been recalled on Sunday for consultations.
“The ambassador will stay permanently in Madrid. Argentina will no longer have a Spanish ambassador, he added, denouncing the remarks of the ultraliberal Argentine president as a fact “unique in the history of international relations”.
“It is an unprecedented fact to see a head of state come to the capital of another country to insult its institutions and to commit clear interference in its internal affairs,” continued José Manuel Albares.
“Arrogant socialist”
Javier Milei’s reaction was not long in coming.
On the Argentinian channel LN+, he described the announcement by Pedro Sánchez’s government as an “absurd decision of an arrogant socialist”. “A major error” which “tarnishes the international image of Spain”, he added, ensuring that he would not withdraw the Argentine ambassador to Spain in response. “We are maintaining everything as it has been up until now.”
This unprecedented diplomatic crisis between the two countries came to a head following remarks on Sunday in Madrid by Javier Milei during a convention of the Spanish far-right party Vox, of which he was guest of honor.
PHOTO MANU FERNANDEZ, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Javier Milei delivered a speech at a convention of the Spanish far-right party Vox
In a bellicose speech, he attacked, as is his wont, socialism, but also attacked the wife of the Spanish Prime Minister, Begoña Sánchez, without naming her.
“When you have a corrupt wife, you get dirty and you take five days to think about it,” said the Argentine president, who met neither King Felipe VI nor Pedro Sánchez during his three-day visit to Madrid .
Comments seen as a clear allusion to Mr. Sánchez’s recent decision to suspend all his activities for five days to consider resigning, after the opening of a preliminary investigation for “influence peddling” and “corruption” against his wife.
Back in Buenos Aires, Mr. Milei continued his verbal escalation against Mr. Sánchez on Monday, calling him a “coward” and refusing to apologize, as requested by the Spanish government.
“I am in no way going to apologize to him,” added the Argentine president, assuring that representatives of the Spanish government had described him as “xenophobic, racist, ultra-right […] a science denier, a misogynist.”
Milei will come back
As a bonus, he joked about Pedro Sánchez’s “inferiority complex” towards him, advising him “a psychologist” and “a good lawyer for his wife”.
Tensions between Madrid and Buenos Aires erupted two weeks ago after statements by Spanish Transport Minister Oscar Puente, who suggested that Mr. Milei was taking drugs. The Argentine presidency then reacted by accusing Pedro Sánchez of bringing only “poverty and death” to Spain with his policies.
Mr. Milei had also been accused of sowing “hate” by the No. 3 of the Spanish government, Yolanda Diaz.
Provocative to the end, Javier Milei tweeted on Tuesday about his next trip to Spain planned for the end of June, to receive the prize from a liberal think tank, the Instituto Juan de Mariana.
“We will see to what extent he has totalitarianism in his blood […] if his inferiority complex makes him tolerate the Spanish liberals rewarding me in person,” he wrote about Pedro Sánchez.
In the background, the head of Argentine diplomacy Diana Mondino tried Tuesday to lower the volume, calling the tension “an anecdote”, and affirming that “the personal relationship that there may or may not be between leaders cannot and must affect the bilateral relationship.
The announcement of the ambassador’s withdrawal in Buenos Aires sparked criticism from the Spanish right-wing opposition, which accuses Mr. Sánchez of “overplaying” and victimizing himself for electoral purposes, in the run-up to European elections. for which the far right is on the rise in the polls.
“Sánchez’s electoral interests are not more important than those of Spain and Argentina,” denounced the leader of the Popular Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on the social network