A foreign minister with a lot to prove
The new foreign minister does not lack verbal energy - a voice of command in the public arena - although it remains to be determined whether her strong words announce a new position of interest or whether she is merely the mouthpiece of a government more accustomed to talk than action.
No original or definitive proposals can be heard under that vigorous or energetic voice that Arancha Gonzalez Laya showed in her public presentation before the Forum Europa. It seems that the Foreign Minister is suffering from the expatriate syndrome: so long away that she is not even recognised at home, nor does she know how to use the street map of her old city. Experience accumulated abroad is sometimes a borderline that separates reality from domestic politics. For such an omnipresent Spanish political world, being an expert on the outside can be both a blessing and a handicap. But to get hold of the ways and customs of the political inner courtyard is often difficult for those who come from a world with clearer rules of behaviour, less florentines than lkas spends are spent in the peninsula. But at the end of the day, the European is national and vice versa. Perhaps for this reason - let's say it in her favour - Gonzalez Laya praises and preaches the need of an internal cohesion (for example in the necessary autonomic intramarket) to be more powerful in the concert of Europe.
She promises a "redesign, a strategic adaptation of the foreign policy", that summarizes in "euro-activism" (as it can't be any other way), geopolitics of values (from human rights to feminism), more cooperation to development (0.5% as a promise for the end of the legislature) and the fundamental Alliance with Latin America and the Caribbean. Gonzalez Laya repeats the word "geopolitics" in her presentation as an upstart mantra, just as she repeats the "I highlight" about this or that to highlight something that only clear policies, positions with no margin, can highlight alone.
It can be seen that we are in the prologue of an eventual change -or not- of our international strategic vision, while when reaching the most peremptory and specific issues, namely Venezuela or Gibraltar, only the terms "discretion and dialogue" prevail. There is no other. There is nothing clear in the range of arguments to defend, nothing concrete to reject. Pro-European positions are not, and cannot be, new; they go with EU membership and are our identity. Perhaps the minister - who comes from being the head of a European commissioner's cabinet - has learned this lesson better than others. But she and other senior officials with a pedigree from Brussels must show us that they are more than mere Community apparatchiks and that they can be creative both in promoting new proposals and in forging alliances to make them real.
The minister wants to strengthen the economic, climate, humanitarian and feminist angles in our foreign diplomacy. The current mantras of the progressive world. But she must not forget that these nuances are nothing without forging powerful alliances and serving the geostrategic bases on which our foreign policy is based. The discourse is undoubtedly well-intentioned, but it lacks the matching of its energetic tone with more solid truths about our interests in the world.
The first slips on Latin America - with the suppression of the specific Secretary of State - and on the Maghreb have shown how weak an election for this position is for a person without experience in Spanish foreign action and without support in a diplomatic career. To appease the Maghreb front, to overcome Latin American misgivings, to open paths towards Asia and Africa, to weigh more truly in Europe... Many challenges. Now comes the test of the relationship with Trump's America, with the King's state view coming soon and the balance between military and strategic cooperation and commercial interests, with the barriers to our exports in the eaves. A good litmus test to see if Gonzalez Laya has earned the position she landed in, to everyone's surprise.