Coronavirus COVID-19
Arancha González Laya presents the Spanish Cooperation Strategy in response to the COVID-19 crisis
News - 2020.4.8
The Minister and the State Secretary for International Cooperation, Ángeles Moreno Bau, took part on Wednesday in a video-conference called by the High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, to coordinate a European response to COVID-19 in developing countries.
The video-conference was also attended by the European Commissioner for International Partnerships (Development), Jutta Urpilainen, the European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janiz Lenarcic, and the cooperation ministers of Member States.
Within the framework of the meeting, Minister González Laya presented the Spanish Cooperation Strategy in Response to the COVID-19 Crisis.
The Strategy is based on the need to boost Spanish cooperation with the most vulnerable countries and peoples with the aim of offering a global response to a global pandemic, under the premise of "not leaving anyone behind", and of "no-one is safe until we are all safe".
The Spanish Cooperation Strategy to tackle the COVID-19 crisis has three main priorities: to save lives by strengthening public health systems in developing countries; to protect the most vulnerable, above all, those in fragile humanitarian situations; and, lastly, to protect jobs and the productive fabric, above all, for those at the base of the pyramid in developing countries, many of which are Spain's neighbours or with which it has very close bilateral and socio-economic relations.
The European Commission presented the "Team Europe" initiative to coordinate cooperation endeavours by the European Union and its Member States to fight the COVID-19 crisis, thus contributing to the efforts by the United Nations under the leadership of its Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.
The European Commission and the Member States agreed to coordinate and head up a multilateral international agenda to offer a global response to the challenges and harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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