The unexpected diplomatic crisis between Argentina and Spain is just beginning. We still have to go through the European legislative elections on June 9 and Javier Milei’s planned new trip to Madrid on the 21st of that month to receive an award from the Juan de Mariana Institute.
The elections are more than two weeks away. Meanwhile, for the president’s planned unofficial visit to Spain, a whole month. The diplomatic “anecdote,†as Foreign Minister Diana Mondino described it, is generating a plant of speculation about a eventual prohibition by Pedro Sánchez’s government on Milei’s new trip, one step away from the beginning of the European electoral campaign where a clear advance of the right is expected.
Read also: Businessmen ask to reduce tension with Spain, but rule out that the conflict has a commercial impact
The Argentine president was in charge of fueling the fire, once again, with a message in X: “We will see how far totalitarianism goes in blood… Notice, I will travel to receive the Juan de Mariana Award. We’ll see if his great inferiority complex allows the Spanish liberals to award me in person. VLLC,” he wrote.
His friends from the far-right Vox also fueled the rumors. “They let hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants enter Spain, including jihadists, and they intend to ban a single man from entering Spain for defending himself against Sánchez’s insults. The autocrat is unleashed,†his leader stated, Santiago Abascalalso on the old Twitter.
But the international analyst Jorge Castro He is convinced that the Spanish government will not go to that extreme. “I don’t think so, absolutely. But the crisis did not end†, he stated in dialogue with TN.
What will Pedro Sánchez do with Javier Milei’s new trip to Madrid
The conflict appears to be gaining momentum. “Clearly, it can escalate,†Castro said.
For the analyst, “Milei is on the offensive and this takes place when Spain in particular, and all of Europe in general, is immersed in an election for the European Parliament in which all the polls predict an overwhelming victory for the right and the center-right.
Getting out of this fight would mean for Sánchez taking a step back in his political and cultural battle against the Spanish extreme right that sees in Milei a hope of repeating in Spain his triumph in Argentina.
“This gives an extreme dimension to the confrontation. But in addition, there is Milei’s trip on June 21 to receive an award from the Spanish liberals,” Castro noted.
Read also: Unprecedented crisis between Argentina and Spain: from the reasons to the scenarios that open up due to the dispute
The Spanish government is now considering what to do with this trip. Banning it would be giving Milei and her internal allies a huge political victory. The socialist executive today does not rule out applying new measures against Argentina. Even declare “ungrateful person†to Milei, according to the newspaper The Country. “We will analyze what type of visit it is,†said the chancellor, José Manuel Albares. Vetoing entry into Spain seems like a drastic measure for now.
But in Madrid, they are aware that Milei is playing something else and fear that he will raise the stakes with new attacks on Spanish soil. For this reason, they do not rule out an escalation, although Sánchez will no longer have the European electoral campaign on top of him.
Concern grows in the Spanish diplomatic world
Meanwhile, in the Spanish diplomatic world, they warn that Sánchez has reached a point where «control of the consequences is already lost.»
“Milei has built his entire political career on the basis of insults and with an unfiltered speech, in which, under the pressure of the European elections, the Spanish Government has come to play. In this game of cards, Milei will always beat you,†the newspaper wrote. The Reason.
Read also: Milei’s response to the Spanish government after the decision to withdraw the ambassador: «It’s nonsense.»
Spanish diplomatic sources, cited by the newspaper, went further: “We have agreed to enter a testosterone pulse and in that competition you can only end up in the same mud that we criticize,†they emphasized.
According to this vision, the Spanish government has adopted “disproportionate” and “irrational” measures, such as the withdrawal of its ambassador in Buenos Aires, copying “the Milei model.” “Doing a Milei is not going to give us more profit than competing for headlines and measuring ourselves in insults, and this ends up identifying you with the one you accuse of being populist and extremist,†they concluded.