Mexican presidents wants to 'pause' relations with Spain

4 yıl önce

MEXICO CITY â Mexicoâs populist, nationalist leader has engaged in periodic quarrels with Spain, but relations reached a new low Wednesday when President AndrÃ©s Manuel LÃ³pez Obrador said the two countriesâ relations should be put on âpause.â

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LÃ³pez Obrador made it sound sort of like a time-out for Spain, a country he had previously asked to apologize for the brutality of the 1521 Conquest of Mexico and centuries of colonial rule. Spain never did, and some have accused LÃ³pez Obrador of using the five-century-old issue to distract attention.

LÃ³pez Obrador didnât explain exactly what a âpauseâ would mean, but the proposal came at the end of a diatribe against Spanish energy companies he said had taken unfair advantage of private-sector openings in Mexico. The president claimed they engaged in ârobberyâ and treated Mexico like âa conquered land.â

âRight now the relationship is not good,â LÃ³pez Obrador said at his daily news briefing. âI would like to put it on pause, until we can normalize it, that I think would be in the best interest of Mexicans and Spaniards.â

âLetâs give ourselves a little time, a pause,â he said. âMaybe relations will be re-established when the administration changes.â

Spainâs Foreign Minister, JosÃ© Manuel Albares, downplayed the Mexican presidentâs remarks, noting they were made âin an informal context, in answer to a journalistâs question, and so do not constitute and official position or statement.â

âYou would have to ask President LÃ³pez Obrador what he meant by this,â Albares said.

Spanish energy companies like Repsol and Iberdrola took advantage of openings in the last decade that allowed private and foreign companies to build electrical power plants in Mexico, a sector once dominated by Mexicoâs state-owned utility.

LÃ³pez Obrador is seeking to reverse those openings, because he said the state-owned company was put at a disadvantage with private firms. That proposed change has drawn concern about protecting the Spanish firmsâ investments.

In a 2020 letter, LÃ³pez Obrador wrote âThe Catholic Church, the Spanish monarchy and the Mexican government should make a public apology for the offensive atrocities that Indigenous people suffered.â

The letter came as Mexico marked the 500th anniversary of the 1519-1521 conquest, which resulted in the death of a large part of the countryâs pre-Hispanic population.

In 2019, LÃ³pez Obrador asked Spain for an apology for the conquest.

Spainâs foreign minister at the time, Josep Borrell said his country âwill not issue these apologies that have been requested.â