Argentina’s populist President Javier Milei renewed his attack on socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez during a recent visit to Madrid to receive an award from a right-wing institute.
Milei’s last visit to Spain last month sparked a diplomatic row that saw Madrid withdraw its ambassador to Argentina after the president said Sánchez had ‘a corrupt wife’. ALSO READ: Spain withdraws ambassador to Argentina ‘definitively’, as Milei refuses to apologise.
Ahead of his latest visit, Spain urged Milei ‘to show respect at all times for the institutions of this country and for the Spanish people’.
The self-declared ‘anarcho-capitalist’ Milei travelled to Madrid to receive an award from the neo-liberal Juan de Mariana Institute for his ‘exemplary defence of the ideas of freedom’.
He also met with Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the right-wing regional president of Madrid who also presented Milei with an honorary medal.
Accepting the medal, Milei lashed out at socialism, which generates ‘poverty’ and ‘is based on jealousy, on hatred, on resentment, on unequal treatment before the law’.
He also berated economist PM Sánchez who ‘evidently, despite having studied economics, either he didn’t understand it or he loves the state’.
Milei warned Spaniards about the ‘risk you have before you’.
‘Don’t let socialism ruin your lives,’ he added.
Ayuso thanked Milei for his visit and praised inflation-ravaged Argentina for ‘coming back strongly’ under his leadership and policies that ‘sound like fresh air in the whole American continent, but also in Europe’.
Milei’s austerity measures since taking office in December have seen inflation slow but economic activity has plummeted while poverty and unemployment have risen.
The Spanish government slammed Ayuso, a vocal critic of Sánchez, for hosting Milei, who once again met neither the prime minister nor King Felipe VI on his visit.
‘You can very clearly see what is (Ayuso’s) concept of institutionality, loyalty and patriotism,’ government spokeswoman Pilar Aegría told the Antena 3 television channel.
Milei also travelled to Germany over the weekend to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Argentina hoy resuena como nunca. Que nuestra relación con esta nación hermana nunca se rompa.
— Isabel Díaz Ayuso (@IdiazAyuso) June 21, 2024
Que la libertad cambie la vida de millones de argentinos; en Madrid tienen su casa.
Enhorabuena, @JMilei. pic.twitter.com/BY4nsfn8Aa
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