The Presidency has convened meetings of the Economic and Social Council (CES), now set to tackle critical national issues as of Tuesday, 3 June 2025, at 11am at the library meeting facility of the Pedro Henríquez Ureña University in Santo Domingo. The CES meeting will focus on six key areas – migration, bilateral trade, border community development, national security, international relations, and labor issues — stemming from a recent agreement between President Luis Abinader and past Presidents Danilo Medina, Leonel Fernandez and Hipolito Mejia.
The upcoming CES discussions are a direct result of the high-level meetings the former Presidents held on 14 May 2025 at the Ministry of Defense. There, President Abinader, along with former Presidents Hipólito Mejía, Leonel Fernández, and Danilo Medina, met to learn about key security issues in regards to the multidimensional crisis in Haiti across the land border and the impact in the Dominican Republic. The Presidents agreed to establish a unified political stance on the Haitian crisis. The 14 May meeting outlined four key areas for collaborative effort:
- Creation of joint workspaces
- Convening of the Economic and Social Council (CES)
- Periodic reports to former Presidents on Haiti
- Promotion of a unified foreign policy
Rafael Toribio, president of the CES, lauded the political leaders for their display of unity, emphasizing the council’s commitment to facilitating a comprehensive and inclusive dialogue. “As a constitutional body for social consensus, the CES will announce the next steps in due course, convinced that through frank and participatory debate and dialogue, concrete consensuses and contributions will be obtained for the benefit of the entire Dominican nation,” Toribio stated.
The members of the CES include:
• Labor sector: Rafael Abreu, Sérgido Castillo, Gabriel del Río, and Daysy Montero
• Social sector: Máximo Román Batista, Noel Giraldi, and Pablo Viñas
• Business sector: César Dargam, Luis Miura, and Mario Pujols
• CES president and secretary: Rafael Toribio and Ana Selman
The meetings come at a time when violence escalates in Haiti, where the gangs are practically in control of the capital city, and the reach of the gangs is moving beyond Port-au-Prince.
Read more in Spanish:
El Dia
El Dia
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El Nacional
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
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El Caribe
N Digital
29 May 2025