Mexico–Spain relations

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, was conquered by the Spanish and the Tlaxcaltecs in 1521.[1] Rebuilt to present-day Mexico City, the new capital was founded as the center of power for the subsequent Viceroyalty of New Spain in 1535.[2] The viceroyalty had a stratified social hierarchy based on race with the criollos on top, who had the most rights, until the Laws of the Indies were established throughout the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Likewise, the rights of the Aztec nobility were recognized, which lived and co-governed with the Spanish during the viceroyalty.[3]

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.[4]

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). 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.[4]

General Juan Prim commanded the Spanish expeditionary army in Mexico in 1862, when France, Spain, and the United Kingdom 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.[5]

During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), Mexico had provided arms to the Republican faction[6] 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.[7] 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.[8]

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.[9]

Several Latin American countries, including Mexico, have been accusedby of harboring members of the armed organization ETA.[10][11]

From June 29 to July 1, 2015, the king and queen of Spain, Felipe VI and Letizia Ortiz, paid a state visit to Mexico. They were received by the head of Government of the Federal District, Miguel Ángel Mancera, at the City Hall Palace, where they received the appointment of Distinguished Guests. King Felipe VI attended the Mexico Spain Business Forum, in which businessmen and representatives of the governments of the two nations also participated. Meanwhile, Queen Letizia participated in a meeting with the Ibero-American Alliance for Rare Diseases. They were also received in a solemn session in the Republic's Senate, where the anthems of the two nations were sung and the guest book was signed. Don Felipe and Doña Letizia attended a lunch organized by the Spanish Embassy in Mexico, during which they had the opportunity to meet and talk with members of the Spanish community in Mexico. Their Royal Highnesses traveled to Zacatecas, where they held the closing ceremony of the "past, present and future" colloquium on relations between Mexico and Spain, at the Guadalupe Viceroyalty Museum. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and his wife, Angélica Rivera, accompanied the royal couple to most of their engagements, including this last one.[12]

On September 19, 2017, Mexico suffered an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 that seriously affected different areas of the country, including its capital, Mexico City, where several buildings collapsed. The following day, the Military Emergencies Unit (UME) began the progressive deployment of an Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team with health support, communications and logistics capabilities. A total of 54 soldiers, two of them from the Army, who flew to Mexico in an Air Force Airbus in response to a bilateral request from the Government of that country. Coordinated by the Centralized Command for the Management of International Teams, the UME USAR team collaborated with the country's emergency services to rescue the greatest number of people alive and recover the dead bodies that could be trapped in the rubble.[13]

In 2019, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador classified foreign investment in Mexico as "neocolonialist" and linked Spanish and U.S. 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,[16] which was firmly rejected, both by the Spanish Crown and Government[17] as well as by the National Indigenous Congress (CNI) of Mexico through its spokeswoman, María de Jesús Patricio Martínez, who described the petition as "a simulation" and stated that what the Mexican president should do is stop dispossessing indigenous communities of the land.[18][19] In addition, 62% of the Mexican population believes that López Obrador used the conquest to do politics, while more than half of Mexicans (55%) do not consider an apology necessary for colonization.[20] In fact, the descendants of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II, such as Juan José Marcilla de Teruel-Moctezuma y Valcárcel (current holder of the Dukedom of Moctezuma de Tultengo), criticized the Mexican president, considering that there is no point in apologizing for something that happened five centuries ago, and that they do not want their ancestors to be used for political purposes to cause social division.[21][22]

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.[23]

In February 2022, Mexican president López Obrador proposed a "pause" in the bilateral relations between both countries, in light of alleged mispractices of Spanish companies in Mexico during previous administrations.[24] The Spanish Government issued a notice categorically rejecting the offences against Spain and Spanish companies, arguing that both countries are "strategic partners" while noting that the Spanish government wishes for "relations based on mutual respect".[25][26]

In March 2022, the Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares traveled to Mexico and together with the Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, both countries have agreed to “accelerate the relationship” between the two countries instead of taking a pause as requested in February 2022 by President López Obrador. During the meeting, the two foreign ministers signed four agreements on political, cultural, scientific and cooperation in the rights of women.[27]