The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, has expressed his willingness to meet with King Felipe VI during his visit to Spain, a seventh stop in the country that takes place this Wednesday, although Zarzuela has made it clear to him that, for such a meeting to occur, he would also have to meet with the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, an option that the Argentine leader has expressly ruled out.
Sources from the Royal Household have indicated that, as in previous trips by Milei, the Argentine Government informally conveyed the president's interest in holding a meeting with the monarch. According to these same sources, the Argentine Executive was reminded that the usual practice in Spain, when it comes to visits by heads of state, is that the meeting with the King must necessarily be accompanied by another with the Prime Minister.
Zarzuela's position and the usual practice in this type of visit
The requirement for this double meeting once again places the relationship between Javier Milei and Pedro Sánchez at the center of the diplomatic agenda, marked by public clashes between both leaders. On this occasion, the sources consulted by the Royal Household have stressed that the proposed formula responds to a usual criterion in official visits of heads of state to Spain, in which contact with King Felipe VI is usually linked to a meeting with the head of the Executive.
Javier Milei himself has assured, during an informative breakfast organized by Nueva Economía Fórum, that he maintains an "excellent" relationship with Felipe VI, and has recalled that both had the opportunity to see each other at the inauguration of the new Colombian president, Abelardo De la Espriella, and the new Peruvian president, Keiko Fujimori, last summer.
As the Argentine president explained, he hopes to have the "possibility of visiting him here" during another of his stays in Spain, and clarified that if they have not met before "it is not a matter of will but of impossibility of agendas."
The formal meeting in 2023 and the new clash with Pedro Sánchez
The King had the opportunity to hold a formal meeting with the Argentine president when Javier Milei took office in December 2023, an appointment for which he traveled accompanied by the then Secretary of State for Ibero-America and not by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In parallel, Milei has again attacked Pedro Sánchez, whom he has defined as "dictator," "corrupt," and "thief," and has thus justified his refusal to meet with him during his visits to Spain. "I am not going to see a criminal thief like Pedro Sánchez, because I am not willing to have to sew up my pockets so as not to be plundered," he stated.
The Argentine president has also defended the need to "kick out the socialists," considering that Spain is the "cradle of liberalism" that he advocates, and added that the only thing he expects from the elections on November 29 is that "Spaniards vote in favor of themselves, that they do not commit suicide by voting socialist."