Miguel Ángel Moratinos arrives in Venezuela

Miguel Ángel Moratinos arrives in Venezuela
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By h.b. - Jul 27, 2009 - 7:22 AM
The trip follows the Spanish Foreign Minister's controversial trip to Gibraltar

Miguel Ángel Moratinos - EFE archive

Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, has arrived in Venezuela on a trip designed to improve relations by building more economic agreements.

The Minister is travelling with a large delegation of Spanish businessmen, and several new agreements are expected to be signed by companies such as Repsol YPF, Iberdrola, Telefónica and Mapfre. Also Iberdrola and Elecnor are set to build a natural gas power station.

The visit is also seen as improving relations between the two countries, damaged by the famous comment by King Juan Carlos to Hugo Chávez at the Iberian-American summit in Chile in November 2007 – ‘Por qué no te callas?

Moratinos meets with Hugo Chávez on Wednesday and later plans to go onto Brazil, although a meeting with Lula is reported still to be confirmed.

Before leaving on his latest trip, Moratinos criticised the opposition leader Mariano Rajoy for his comments about the Minister’s visit to Gibraltar. Rajoy described Moratinos as the first foreign minister to make an official visit to his own country, Moratinos said Rajoy had lacked loyalty, and reminded the PP leader that the Spanish Government had not given a millimetre on the question of sovereignty. He added that there were far more shameful photographs in the press than those of his visit to Gibraltar.

Meanwhile the PP veteran, Manuel Fraga, broke the party line and voiced support for Moratinos’s trip to the Rock.

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