The King of Spain will receive the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud
Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud will pay an official visit to the Spanish capital of Madrid on Monday 13 June, according to information published in the agenda of the Royal Household of H.M. King Felipe VI and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. During this visit, he will meet with the King at La Zarzuela Palace and with Minister Albares at the Viana Palace.
It is the first visit by a member of the Saudi royal house since 2018, when Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman visited Madrid accompanied by a strong ministerial entourage that sealed important agreements between the two countries. It was also the last visit to Spain by a foreign minister, who at the time was Adel Al Jubeir.
The official information communicated by the Spanish authorities does not specify the topics that the two foreign ministers will discuss during the visit, but it is expected that they will analyse the commercial opportunities that exist between the two countries, especially now that the Saudi-Spanish Investment Forum held in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, has concluded with great success. The event was attended by a large number of Spanish companies, which were welcomed by the Saudi Government and Saudi Civil Society. The Spanish Minister of Industry, Reyes Maroto, was one of the special guests at the event, which has been held for several years now.
Reyes Maroto declared during the Saudi-Spanish Investment Forum that large joint projects are being prepared between companies from both countries, especially in the tourism infrastructure sector, a sector that Saudi Arabia has been promoting in recent years.
It is precisely in the field of tourism that Spain and Saudi Arabia have signed their latest major cooperation agreements at the institutional level. On 27 October 2021, the two governments signed the Joint Declaration between the Minister of Tourism of Saudi Arabia and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism on cooperation in the field of tourism. Previously, a Memorandum on Scientific and Technological Cooperation, an agreement for Cooperation in the fields of Labour and Social Development, an Executive Programme for Cultural Cooperation between the Kingdom of Spain represented by the MECD and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia represented by the Ministry of Culture and Information, an Air Transport Treaty and the very important Procurement Agreement between the Ministry of Defence of the Kingdom of Spain and the Ministry of Defence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were reached. It is thanks to this last agreement in 2018 that the Spanish company Navantia offers its ships to the armed forces of the Gulf country.
Spanish companies have already developed major projects in Saudi Arabia, such as the Riyadh metro or water management and processing.
All these latest agreements were the result of Mohamed Bin Salman's visit to Spain in 2018 and are proof of the excellent, as the MAEC describes it, relationship between Spain and Saudi Arabia. A relationship that has been characterised mainly by the closeness between the royal houses of the two countries, in addition to the very good image and consideration that the Saudis have of Spain thanks to Spain's soft power. Football and a common historical past, due to the idea of Al-Andalus, mean that an average of 80,000 Saudis visit Spain every year.
In addition to these aspects of economic and industrial relations, which Reyes Maroto's portfolio is already responsible for promoting, it is possible that the Spanish minister, José Manuel Albares, and his Saudi counterpart will address other more topical issues, such as the recent crisis with Algeria or the normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The Saudi government is a great supporter of the Alawite monarchy in Morocco, which is why they have highly valued the change of position of Pedro Sánchez's government regarding Western Sahara, and this could open up new avenues in relations.