Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced on Friday that she will travel to Barcelona on April 18 for a meeting of progressive leaders hosted by Pedro Sánchez. Attendees will include the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Colombia, Gustavo Petro; and Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi. The trip signals a thaw in Mexico-Spain relations after years of diplomatic tensions.
Claudia Sheinbaum made the announcement during her daily press conference on Friday, April 10. "I am going to Barcelona, on the 18th, next week," said the Mexican president. "I am going to a meeting of a group of progressive governments," she explained, noting she was invited recently and decided to attend yesterday.
The meeting, called Global Progressive Mobilisation, is an original idea from former Chilean President Gabriel Boric and features 116 speakers from over 40 countries. Sánchez is hosting in Barcelona, with progressive leaders in office and retired, activists, and academics expected.
This is Sheinbaum's first trip to Spain as president since taking office in October 2024, and the first by a Mexican president in eight years. Bilateral relations cooled in 2019 after a letter from Andrés Manuel López Obrador to Felipe VI demanding apologies for Conquest abuses. Sheinbaum did not invite the king to her 2024 inauguration.
Recently, on March 16, Felipe VI acknowledged there was "mucho abuso" and "ethical controversies" in colonization. Sheinbaum valued it as a gesture of rapprochement, though noting it was "not all we would have wanted," and invited him to the World Cup in Mexico in June.
