The Spanish government considers it “unacceptable” that King Felipe VI was not invited to the inauguration of Mexico’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, on October 1 in Mexico City and has therefore decided not to participate in any ceremony at any level, as reported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement.
Mexico’s official candidate won the June 3 presidential elections with a landslide victory over the opposition Xóchitl Gálvez. From there, Mexico’s interim president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, assured that the newly elected president could resume bilateral relations, which he put on “pause” in 2022 considering that there was no “attitude of respect” for the Spanish side.
“Now that the changes are happening, there is an opportunity with the president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who is a very intelligent woman, very respectful, very fraternal and who also knows the history of Mexico and the world,” he said at a press conference last year in July.
It was in 2022 that López Obrador again focused his criticism on Spain, something he has done repeatedly since coming to power in December 2018, putting relations between the two countries on hold and demanding an apology from Felipe VI for the Conquest.
In March 2019, the president sent a letter to the monarch demanding that “the Spanish state recognize its historical responsibility” for the crimes committed during the conquest and “present an appropriate apology or political compensation,” a request that has never received a response.
Felipe VI has traditionally attended the inaugurations of Ibero-American presidents, first as Prince of Asturias and then as King, although on certain occasions and for different reasons, the representation falls to another high-ranking state official.
