Mexico–Spain relations

Mexico–Spain relations

Mexico	Spain

Mexico-Spain relations refers to the bilateral relations between Mexico and Spain. Both nations are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Organization of Ibero-American States and the United Nations.

History[]

Spanish conquest[]

Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his indigenous mistress La Malinche meeting the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II in 1519.

The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés led an expedition to what is now Mexico in 1518, establishing the city of Veracruz on his arrival. Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire, fell to Spain in 1521. It was renamed Mexico City, the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.^[1] The Viceroyalty had a stratified social hierarchy based on race, with the peninsulares (people born in Spain) on top, who had the most civil rights in New Spain.^[2]

Independence[]

The late 18th and early 19th century saw much revolutionary feeling in the countries of Western Europe and their colonies. The feeling built up in Mexico after the occupation of Spain by the French Revolutionary Emperor Napoleon in 1808, and the 1810 Grito de Dolores speech by Mexican Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla against Spanish rule is widely recognized as the beginning of the Mexican War of Independence. In 1811, Hidalgo was executed by the Spanish militia, but his movement fought on until the establishment of the independent constitutional Mexican Empire in 1821, after the Treaty of Córdoba. The Empire was ousted and the first Mexican Republic created in 1823.^[2]

Post-independence[]

Spain fails to reconquer Mexico at the Battle of Tampico in 1829

Spain established diplomatic relations with Mexico on 26 December 1836 (15 years after Mexico had declared its independence).^[2] In the beginning, the diplomatic relationship between the two nations was strained due to Mexico having been a former colony of Spain and the latter's unsuccessful endeavors to reconquer its former colony in the ensuing years under General Isidro Barradas.^[3]

General Juan Prim commanded the Spanish expeditionary army in Mexico in 1862, when Spain, Great Britain, and France sought forced payment from the liberal government of Benito Juárez for loans. Prim was a sympathizer with the Mexican liberal cause, thus he refused to consent to the ambitious schemes of French emperor Napoleon III, and withdrew Spanish forces following a meeting with Manuel Doblado.^[4]

During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), Mexico had provided arms and refuge to political refugees. Throughout the war, Mexican volunteers joined the Republican side to fight Francisco Franco. In 1939 when Francisco Franco took power in Spain, Mexico severed diplomatic relations between the two nations. After the war, thousands of Spanish refugees sought asylum in Mexico and former Mexican consul in Marseille, France, Gilberto Bosques Saldívar, issued thousands of visas to Spanish refugees and other asylees to seek refuge in Mexico.^[5] Though the Republicans had lost the war, this helped improve the relationship between the two countries after the death of Franco. Mexico and Spain re-established diplomatic relations on 28 March 1977.^[6] It is important to know that even though the Mexican government supported the Republicans, the vast majority of the population including Mexican peasants, known as the Cristeros, supported Francisco Franco and the Nationalists. This is because Mexico had suffered the brutal 1926-1929 Cristero War in which President Plutarco Elías Calles tried to enforce militant state atheism and massacred many men, women, and children for their faith. To the Mexican Cristero peasants, the Republicans were very similar to Calles who they greatly despised. There were Mexican volunteers who also fought for the Nationalists against the Republicans.^[7]

Since re-establishing diplomatic relations, both nations share close and warm diplomatic relations. On several occasions, both countries had supported each other diplomatically and there have been several high level visits and meetings between both governments including with the Spanish Royal Family. Soon after re-establishing diplomatic relations 1977; Spanish Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez paid an official visit to Mexico, the first ever by a Spanish head of government. That same year, in October 1977, Mexican President José López Portillo paid an official visit to Spain.^[8]

Several Latin American countries, including Mexico, have been accused of harboring members of the terrorist organization ETA wanted in France and Spain,^[9][10] being Canada and the United States the only countries of the Americas that classified this organization as a terrorist group.^[11][12][13]

The already complicated relations between the two countries deteriorated further in 2019. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador classified foreign investment in Mexico as "neocolonialist" and linked Spanish and US companies without evidence, the same political situation that occurred in other Latin American countries such as Argentina or Bolivia.^[14] In January, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, made an official visit to Mexico and met with the Mexican president. Both leaders commemorated eighty years since the end of the Spanish civil war and recognized Mexico's openness to receive thousands of Spanish refugees who fled their homes and found asylum in Mexico and their contribution to their adopted country.^[15] However, In March, the Mexican Government demanded a public apology from Spain for the conquest of Mexico, which was firmly rejected by both the Spanish Government and the Spanish Crown.^[16]

In November 2020, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya paid a visit to Mexico. In April 2021, the visit was reciprocated by Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard when he paid a visit to Spain. During his visit, Ebrard announced that Mexico will participate in Phase 3 of the Spanish project for a vaccine against COVID-19. In addition, Ebrard announced that Spain made the decision to share vaccines with other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.^[17]

High-level visits[]

Former Mexican President José López Portillo and his wife with former Spanish King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofía in October 1977.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Mexico City; January 2019.

Presidential visits from Mexico to Spain^{[18][19][20][21][22][23]}

• President José López Portillo (1977)
• President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (1985)
• President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1992)
• President Ernesto Zedillo (1996, 2000)
• President Vicente Fox (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006)
• President Felipe Calderón (2007, 2008, 2010, 2012)
• President Enrique Peña Nieto (2014, 2018)

Royal and Prime Ministerial visits from Spain to Mexico^{[8][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]}

• Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez (1977)
• King Juan Carlos I of Spain (1978, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1997, 2002)
• Queen Sofía of Spain (1983, 1985, 2000)
• Prime Minister Felipe González (1985, 1987, 1991)
• King (and as Prince) Felipe VI of Spain (1991, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018)
• Prime Minister José María Aznar (1996, 2001, 2002, 2003)
• Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004, 2007)
• Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy Brey (April and June 2012, 2014)
• Queen Letizia of Spain (2017)
• Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (2019)

Agreements[]

Over the years, both nations have signed numerous bilateral agreements and treaties such as an Agreement on Scientific and Technical Cooperation (1977); Agreement on the elimination of visas (1977); Agreement on Cultural and Educational Cooperation (1978); Agreement on Nuclear Energy Cooperation for peaceful purposes (1979); Air Transportation Agreement (1979); Agreement on Economic and Commercial Cooperation (1980); Extradition Treaty (1984); Agreement on the Avoidance of Double-Taxation (1984); Tourism Agreement (1996); Agreement on the Promotion and Protection of Investments (1997); Agreement on Cooperation between the Bank of Mexico and Bank of Spain (2014) and an Agreement on Cooperation against Organized Crime (2014).^[32]

Transport[]

There are direct flights between Mexico and Spain through the following airlines: Aeroméxico, Air Europa, Evelop Airlines, Iberia and Wamos Air.

Drug trafficking[]

In 2012, four suspected members of Mexican drug cartel Sinaloa were arrested in Spain, while allegedly trying to set up a European operation.^[33][34]

In 2013, the head of the Spanish Drugs and Organized Crime Unit (known as Udyco) believed that the Mexican drug cartels had set out to “conquer” Spain and not forge an alliance with Colombian drug organizations.^[35]

In 2017, Spanish police extradited Juan Manuel Muñoz Luévano, suspected of carrying out operations for Mexican drugs cartel los Zetas in Spain, to the United States.^[36]

Trade relations[]

In 1997, Mexico signed a free trade agreement with the European Union, of which Spain is a member. In 2018, two-way trade between both nations amounted to US$10.8 billion.^[37][38] Mexico's exports to Spain include: crude oil, medicine, alcohol, fish and mobile phones; while Spanish exports to Mexico include: vehicles, vehicle parts and wine.^[39] Mexico is Spain's biggest trading partner in Latin America and 15th biggest globally^[38]

Several prominent Spanish multinational companies operate in Mexico, such as: Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Mapfre, Santander Group, Telefónica and Zara; while several multinational Mexican companies operate in Spain, such as: ALFA, Cemex and Grupo Bimbo.^{[citation needed]}

Resident diplomatic missions[]

• Mexico has an embassy in Madrid^[40] and a consulate in Barcelona.^[41]
• Spain has an embassy in Mexico City^[42] and consulates-general in Guadalajara^[43] and Monterrey.^[44]

• 

  Embassy of Mexico in Madrid

• 

  Consulate of Mexico in Barcelona

• 

  Embassy of Spain in Mexico City

See also[]

• Centro Cultural de España en México
• Mexican immigration to Spain
• Spanish immigration to Mexico

References[]

External links[]

• Mexican Ministry of foreign Affairs on diplomatic relations between Mexico and Spain (in Spanish)
• Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs on bilateral relations with Mexico (in Spanish)