Ambassador to Spain.
Former president
Alberto Fernández
always dreamed of that: to be ambassador to Spain.
He confessed it in 2019, when he headed the presidential formula of the Frente de Todos, with
Cristina Kirchner
as vice, which beat Mauricio Macri's Together for Change.
“I want us to beat Macri and be ambassador to Spain,” Alberto said at the time, when Cristina offered him the candidacy for president.
But he had no choice but to assume the government,
shelve the desire of the Spanish embassy and resist the four years of mandate from which in December he said goodbye, as quickly as he could, to announce, while he was still president,
that he planned to settle in Spain.
“I have offers from some universities to teach,”
said the former president in one of the last interviews he gave in Buenos Aires to the foreign press.
This time yes.
For a month now, Alberto Fernández has been another resident of Madrid.
He was anticipated by the former first lady, Fabiola Yañez, who traveled at the beginning of December, before the transfer of government, with Francisco, the couple's son, who will turn two years old in April.
Alberto Fernández met with Pedro Sánchez this Friday.
“I am leaving for Spain on an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight, our flagship airline, to reunite with my family and spend Christmas and New Year with them,” Alberto noted in his X account on December 21 of last year.
Sources from the presidential environment, however, commented that before the reunion in Spain, Fabiola no longer lived with Alberto in the main house of Quinta de Olivos.
She had settled with her baby in another chalet.
Madrid life
Argentines - tourists or residents - who recognize him shout him out on the networks and remind him of his time in the Government.
Like when they saw him in a branch of the Santander bank on Serrano street, in one of the most pituco neighborhoods in the center of Madrid.
Or like when they caught him, on New Year's Eve, having dinner at Dani Brasserie, the restaurant on the seventh floor of the Four Seasons in the Spanish capital, where the “New Year's Eve menu” included black truffle cake and A5 Wagyu tenderloin from Kagoshima with truffled onion for 695 euros per person and 1,155 pesos with wine.
Until now, the former president has not carried out any procedures at the consulate of our country in Spain.
He did not change his residence nor register as an Argentine abroad.
Of course:
she processed a certificate of good health for her son to be able to enroll him in a kindergarten in Spain.
Since he spends his days here, Alberto shares them on his networks.
He posted several photos with his son Francis in his arms during the Madrid-Rome flight that took him to meet the pope on Monday, January 15.
And she took care to clarify that Fabiola's absence in that private audience with Bergoglio was due to the fact that a week ago, last Saturday, the former first lady had surgery for appendicitis.
In Madrid, such an intervention costs around 4,500 euros.
Few job offers
Regarding the “offers from some universities to teach” that the former president said he had received,
he himself confirmed only one this week:
he will join the private group Proeduca.
“I have agreed to join to carry out very ambitious projects that range from agreements with Latin American universities to develop technical degrees, to field work and analysis on the effects caused by the pandemic on the mental health of adolescents and young people,” he listed.
“We are very satisfied with their incorporation into our educational project, whose mission is to break down barriers to access to quality education, mainly university education,” Proeduca sources told
Clarín
.
The Pope when he received Alberto Fernández who went with his son Francisco.
For its part, the Camilo José Cela University reported: “We inform you that Mr. Alberto Fernández participated in the master's degree in Image Consulting and Political Consulting in 2019 and, since then, he has not taught classes at this university nor is his hiring planned. ”.
He was also linked to ALEPH, another private educational institution that admitted to having links with the former Argentine president for years.
“We will surely summon him to give a specific class,” they told
Clarín
and confirmed that he will not have and does not have a permanent employment contract.
The relationship with Pedro Sánchez
The former president's move to Spain was, from the beginning, decorated with crossed versions and rumors.
That he had bought a house in Madrid, that he owned a hotel in Valencia
and even that he settled on Iberian soil to be an advisor to President Pedro Sánchez.
During a private meeting with foreign correspondents,
Clarín
asked the head of the Spanish government: “No.
Where did that come from?” was Sánchez's response, smiling and surprised.
This Friday Alberto visited him at the Moncloa Palace.
The meeting was not on the official agenda of the president of the Spanish government and Moncloa preferred to ignore Clarín
's query
about the meeting.
Alberto took it upon himself to do the opposite: he published it on his networks, with a photo and everything.
“I always celebrate meeting again with my dear friend Pedro Sánchez, president of all Spaniards and a great representative of global progressive policies,” said Fernández.
“Once again we share our concern about the unique moment the world is going through,” he added.
I expressed my agreement with his speech at the Davos Forum, where he pointed out that the rise of authoritarian politics and the growth of the extreme right represent enormous dangers for the rule of law and promote polarization in societies that only they harm.”
He did not avoid criticizing, without mentioning it, the participation of President Javier Milei in that Swiss economic forum.
He aimed at “democratic coexistence and promoting harmonious development between the State and companies.
Free market competition cannot become the law of the jungle.
The State must be present to care for and protect citizen rights.”
On December 21, when he announced that he was getting on an Airlines plane to travel to Spain, Alberto Fernández promised to return: “I will soon be back to continue working as another militant alongside my colleagues, in unity, in the face of the catastrophic economic situation that will result from the measures adopted by the current national government,” the former president said without flinching.
His government left 211.4% inflation in the last year alone.