Felipe VI will make a stopover in Mexico City this Thursday en route to Guadalajara to attend the World Cup match between Spain and Uruguay.
Felipe VI arrives in Mexico this Thursday to attend a match featuring the Spanish national team at the World Cup and to hold a first-time meeting with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum—a move that signals a normalization of bilateral relations between Spain and Mexico following years of diplomatic tension.
More than seven years have passed since the King’s last visit to Mexico: it was December 1, 2018, when he attended the inauguration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City—the same leader who, a year later, sent a letter to the Spanish Crown requesting an apology for abuses committed during the Conquest.
Diplomatic tensions between the two countries stemming from that letter—which deepened when the Mexican government decided not to invite the King to President Sheinbaum’s inauguration in September 2024—have been easing in recent months, and this meeting will highlight that rapprochement.
Thus, accepting an invitation from Sheinbaum, Felipe VI will stop in Mexico City this Thursday on his way to Guadalajara to attend the World Cup match between Spain and Uruguay, scheduled for Thursday night (local time).
The bilateral meeting will take place at the National Palace at 4:45 PM (local time), after which the King will continue his journey to Guadalajara.
The Royal Household has framed the trip within “a context of intensifying bilateral relations” between Spain and Mexico, while Sheinbaum will receive him in his capacity as Spanish Head of State: “Since he is taking this step, we are receiving him here,” the Mexican president said, noting that Felipe VI could have traveled directly to Guadalajara, where the football match is being played. Both countries have taken steps toward this gradual rapprochement; notably, in February, Sheinbaum invited King Felipe VI to attend the World Cup, noting in her letter that the tournament offered a “favorable opportunity to reflect on the depth and unique nature of the ties between Mexico and Spain.”
The Royal Household welcomed the personal invitation for the monarch to visit Mexico, viewing it within the context of the “fraternal relationship” and friendship shared by the two nations. Furthermore, in March, while attending an exhibition in Madrid titled “Women in Indigenous Mexico,” the monarch acknowledged that there had been “significant abuse” during the conquest of the Americas.
For Sheinbaum—who traveled to Barcelona last April to attend a summit of leftist leaders—this gesture represented a “very important step” by Spain. She remarked that, “while it falls short of the apology originally requested, it is nonetheless a step forward,” linking the gesture to a recognition of indigenous peoples.
President Sheinbaum plans to discuss the importance of these indigenous peoples and the need to acknowledge Mexico’s pre-colonial cultural greatness with the King of Spain. The King will be accompanied on his trip to Mexico by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and the Minister of Education, Vocational Training, and Sports, Milagros Tolón.
Mexico was the destination of the monarchs’ second state visit—and their first outside Europe—in 2015, following Felipe VI’s proclamation as the new monarch.
Source: aristeguintocias
