Spain – Conversation between Franck Riester and Xiana Méndez, Secretary of State for Trade (22 October 2020)

Franck Riester, Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade and Economic Attractiveness, attached to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, will speak with his Spanish counterpart, Xiana Méndez, today.

The minister delegate will discuss measures to be undertaken jointly with Spain to strengthen the multilateral trade system, notably within the framework of the WTO. He will reaffirm his determination to mobilize the EU’s trade policy instruments to defend European interests, notably with respect to the Airbus/Boeing dispute.

The minister delegate will support the necessary alignment of EU trade agreements with the environmental goals of the Paris climate agreement. He will discuss with his counterpart the initiative aimed at implementing an EU carbon border adjustment mechanism.

Franck Riester and Xiana Méndez will take part in the second edition of the France-Spain Economic Forum, jointly organized by MEDEF (France’s largest business federation) and its Spanish equivalent, CEOE (Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organizations). They will exchange views with French and Spanish companies, notably in the energy, digital and transport sectors.

France and Spain are key bilateral trading partners. France is the 2nd largest supplier and 4th largest foreign investor in Spain (with almost €50 billion in FDI) and has almost 2,000 companies in the country, employing 350,000 people. France is the largest export market for Spanish companies and is home to more than 900 subsidiaries of Spanish firms, which employ almost 62,000 people.