President Danilo Medina will be present for the opening of the meeting of the Council of the Socialist International in Santo Domingo in Santo Domingo on Monday, 28 January 2019. The agenda establishes that the visiting delegations will focus on multilateralism to ensure, the strengthening of democracy, but there are expectations the sociopolitical situation in Venezuela will be included in the talks. Foreign Minister Miguel Vargas is the world vice president of the SI and president for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Delegations from more than a hundred political parties affiliated to the Socialist International (IS) movement will be participating in the event at the convention center of the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is expected to participate in the meetings, arriving on Tuesday, 29 January 2019. As reported, Sanchez will be received by President Medina with whom he will sign collaboration agreements and will then leave on the next day for a two-day visit in Mexico.
The Council of the Socialist International intends to discuss three main themes –promoting multilateralism to ensure peace and sustainable development, to fight poverty, achieve greater equality and a world with more solidarity. Also, “Defending rights and freedoms against intolerance, discrimination, xenophobia and populism” and “Protecting our democracies from the new threats, the deliberate disparagement of democratic institutions and the press, ‘fake news’, cyber attacks and invasive technology “.
The Socialist International Party groups political parties from around the world and this is the second time that the Dominican Republic hosts the meeting of the World Council of the body, after the 2009.
The acting president of the PRD and member of the body’s ethics committee, Peggy Cabral, who is the Dominican Republic ambassador in Italy, said that although the debates will focus on the aforementioned issues, each region will be able to introduce those topics that it considers of interest. In that sense, he said that he does not rule out that the issue of the Venezuelan crisis should be included in the agenda.
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El Caribe
28 January 2019
