16th May 2024
On 16th May 2024 the programme “Gender and International Politics” of Polis180 hosted an online event discussing Spain’s Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP), its seemingly invisibility in the cohort of FFP states and its focus on multilateral diplomacy. The event is part of our program’s project Feminist Foreign Policy(s): An On-Going Journey through Global Policies and is intended to provide an opportunity to discuss the development(s) of FFP. Asking in how far Spain’s focus offers a divergent approach to FFP and whether this approach enables a more successful and sustainable implementation, our event was joined by our wonderful speakers Irune Aguirrezabal Quijer, Paula Jou and Alicia Krentz.
Irune Aguirrezabal Quijer, OEI (Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos): Irune Aguirrezabal Quijerais an international professional with over 30 years executive, political, strategic, legal and management experience, who has worked as advisor or director, in Europe, West and Central Africa and Latin America, in government positions, at the United Nations, including as Regional Policy Advisor in UN Women, and other international organizations and for global CSO. Her expertise spans sustainable development areas including women rights, gender equality, migration governance, international justice, democracy and human rights. With a Law degree and a PhD in multidisciplinary gender studies, she has been recognized for her research excellence and awarded by prestigious institutions. Currently she is Director on Human Rights, Democracy and Equality at OEI and she teaches in several universities.
Paula Jou, WILPF Spain (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom): Paula Joe is a young expert in international relations and gender studies with activist and research experience at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom section in Spain. Recently, she has been researching on Spain’s Feminist Foreign Policy and its implications for nuclear disarmament and the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Alicia Krentz, German Embassy Madrid: Alicia Krentz began her diplomatic career in 2015 after completing a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration and a Master’s in Political Science & Management. From 2018 to 2022, she served as Consul and Politics, Communications & Cultural Officer at the German embassy in Luanda, Angola. Since 2022, she has been Deputy Head of Communications at the German embassy in Madrid, Spain, also holding the role of Gender & Protocol Officer.
The event started off with an introductory input by Irune who gave an overview of the path that led to Spain’s FFP. She describes Spain’s FFP as a continuum that is the result of a long-lasting commitment of Spain’s social democratic parties towards women’s rights and feminist thinking. Over the past 40 years, various policies and laws have been enacted, increasingly institutionalizing and expanding gender equality and women’s rights. In Spain, gender equality is understood as a value and as a principle that is embedded and enshrined in policies’, institutional and legal frameworks with an impact through all dimensions. According to Irune, Spain’s FFP can be characterized as a commitment of the government to generate coordination on Foreign Policy (led by the President and his high-level discourse on FFP abroad), to impose a gender-women’s rights transformative approach within all foreign policies, very importantly through development cooperation, and to enable inclusive participation (through a consultative process with a FFP advisory board of experts)
Multilateral cooperation is an important instrument of Spain’s FFP mainly through the critical value of feminist development cooperation, provided primarily through AECID (the Spanish agency of development cooperation). Yet Irune pointed out that the use of multilateral versus bilateral instruments in foreign policy depends on the ideology of each government. A point, which stands out in the guidelines of the Spanish FFP, is its particular emphasis on multilateral cooperation. However, Irune’s assessment is that this is not unique to FPP. Rather, Spanish foreign policy is generally expressed through multilateral cooperation. For the future, she hopes that the already high quantity of communication on an international level should produce more qualitative outcomes that emphasize the transformative approach of FFP.
For the past three years, Spain’s FFP has mainly focused on creating the foundations and building the pillars of a FFP that aims to transform international relations, starting by an internal transformation of the foreign ministry itself. The impact of this policy will still require a great deal of effort, including the involvement of all ministries, the regions and the private sector. To succeed, Irune pointed out that it is particularly important that FFP is better institutionally anchored so that it can withstand a change of government, it is essential to increase the budget allocated to this policy, and to focus on producing more qualitative outcomes that emphasize the transformative approach of FFP.
After Irunes input, Paula and Alicia delved deeper into the specific characteristics of Spain’s FFP.
Paula pointed out that FFPs are spaces for contestation and inherit incoherences. However, she deems it important that states adopt FFPs. In terms of Spain’s FFP, she thinks that its strengths are at the same time its weaknesses. At a first glance the guidelines seem promising, especially its ambition to have a coherent transformative approach across sectors. At the same time, it will be challenging to implement feminist policies in the current formation of the security and defense sector. Furthermore, she thinks that the Spanish FFP lacks funding and a specific budget for its implementation. Taking a look at the multilateral level and Spain’s influence, Paula stated that multilateralism in general is in a crisis and faces challenges like fragmentation, democratic back-sliding (on the national level) and a decline of international cooperation, which makes it even more challenging for states like Spain to put gender issues on the agenda. According to Paula, it is the responsibility of FFP states and the civil society to advocate for feminist approaches in non-gender and non-feminist forums which she deems more sustainable for the multilateral arena. In that matter, Spain should also work more closely with the civil society. Regarding the possibility of the Spanish FFP building horizontal relations with Latin American States to overcome the colonial legacy, Paula stated that Spain’s FFP does not mention the concept of colonialism which limits its scope of action and FFP’s transformative potential. Therefore, it would be an important measure to conceptualize Spain’s colonial legacy in its FFP and rethink the concept of „saving native women“ and the notion that women from the so-called Global South seemingly do not have agency.
From the German embassy’s work with the Spanish government, Alicia provided several examples of the strong and long-lasting diplomatic relation between Germany and Spain. She describes the relationship between the two countries as very cooperative. In addition to consultation processes on FFP and National Actions Plan, which are related to the UN Women Peace and Security Agenda (WPS), Alicia describes an exchange between both states concerning possible lessons learned and best practices. Aside from consultations on a bilateral level and coordination on the EU level, Spain and Germany work together on certain targeting regions, with a special emphasis on the region of Latin America. For instance,Germany and Spain organized the EU-LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean) Gender Equality forum in Berlin in 2023 together and are part of close cooperation in the context of the UNIDAS network. Alicia concludes that this cooperative work helps to build bridges and intensify cooperation. On the multilateral level, Spain and Germany work closely together in UN institutions. Like Irune, Alicia sees the cooperation with Spain on feminist issues as a continuum of the resolution 1325 and WPS. In that sense the cooperation between Germany and Spain has intensified since their adoption of their FFPs. On a national level, Alicia emphasized the pivotal role of Spain’s civil society; Spain has a huge civil society that is in favor of feminism and promotes its objectives while also being well-funded. Even though Alicia also describes local competition and different feminist understanding of feminist movements, those differences do not hinder government and civil society’s shared work on topics related to feminism and on the promotion of FFP.
Both speakers also took a closer look at Spain’s co-presidency of the FFP+ Group in 2024 and the role that they think Spain plays in it. Paula mentioned that forums like the FFP+ group are important opportunities for states like Spain to foster alliances on FFP and advocate for funding. Alicia added that what is unique about the FFP+ Group is its mix of different countries that participate. Moreover, it is a crucial tool to build up alliances against antifeminist pushbacks. In that sense it is important to make FFP more resilient and to implement it in all ministries, include feminist approaches in new policies and anchor it contractually at the multilateral level to prevent a turnaround.
While multilateral forums bear great potential for cooperation and the further development and the expansion of FFP, there are also difficulties for FFP in the context of multilateral forums. Paula brought forward the example of disarmament forums. In disarmament forums, many states that previously used gender-sensitive language no longer do so and are less comfortable using it. If gender-sensitive language is not included in the discussions, concluding documents etc., it cannot be incorporated into action plans. This issue extends to autonomous systems, where AI exhibits gender biases. Additionally, states have high military expenditures which impact budgetary expenditure and funding for non-state actors including civil society. As another difficulty, Paula stated that states often limit conversations and negotiations to themselves, making it difficult for civil society to access and address their demands. Moreover, concerning the forum of the UN Security Council Paula observed that it is challenging for the Security Council to agree on resolutions and outcomes. This generally reflects what Paula assessed as the current state of multilateralism which makes it hard to prioritize gender issues.
Alicia added further difficulties to Paula’s examples. For instance, Alicia outlined that there are different formats and groups that are involved in multilateral cooperation. However, there is no single organization that coordinates related efforts and debates leading to a lack of alignment and possible duplications and parallel developments. Moreover, while there are multilateral formats that concentrate around a certain topic or policy field, multilateral cooperation is most often in an interchanging relationship with other fields. Those intersections make visible the interrelatedness of policies and fields but also complicate implementations of policies and agreements related to FFP. In addition, Alicia outlined that there are many that are hesitant to use the term „feminism.“ Though, important partners like the UK and Australia, despite not using the term, pursue the same work and objectives.
To make FFP more sustainable and institutionalized, it is essential to enhance its resilience through multilateral efforts. Alicia emphasizes the importance of making FFP more resilient. She suggests an intersectional approach, implementing FFP across all ministries to naturally incorporate feminist perspectives into new policies. Alicia also advocates for formalizing FFP on a multilateral level, similar to the UN Resolution 1325 and the WPS to prevent complete policy reversals. However, she acknowledges the challenge of resilience due to FFP’s novelty, the diversity of national approaches, and its voluntary nature. Adding to Alicia’s points, Paula highlights the need for increased socialization of FFP, noting that its positive impact can be substantial when civil society is actively involved.
As a final note, Paula emphasized that it is important to keep the discussion about incoherences and abilities of Spain’s FFP alive to make changes. Academia and the state have different notions of FFP.
Alicia concluded that Spain’s FFP, like all FFPs, needs to get more visibility to create acceptance within the society. Spain already has a strong civil society, what is missing are financial and human resources.
We thoroughly thank our speaker for taking the time and joining us for this event.
For further questions you are welcome to contact Linda or Lena.
Event organisation and event report: Linda Müller & Lena Wittenfeld
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