Argentine president Javier Milei in Spain for far-right conference

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00:00 Argentina's President Javier Mele is on an unofficial three-day visit to Madrid.

00:04 The libertarian firebrand is not meeting any government official.

00:09 Instead he's attending this Sunday a summit hosted by Prime Minister

00:13 Pedro Sánchez's political enemy the Vox party. The conference will bring

00:18 together far-right figures from across Europe trying to rally the party's base

00:23 ahead of European elections in June. And for more we're joined by our

00:27 correspondent Sarah Morris. Thanks for joining us Sarah. So who are we

00:33 expecting then at this conference as well as the big star of course Javier

00:37 Mele? Well Vox is describing them all as patriots. This is a big conference of

00:46 European patriots and they've also brought in big hitters from the far

00:52 right from Latin America. Now we're expecting by video conference we're

00:58 going to get an address later today from Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Moloney.

01:03 Also on a video conference will be our Hungary's MP Viktor Orban. But actually

01:10 in Madrid in person and addressing those delegates will be Marine Le Pen of

01:16 course from France's national rally. And we'll also have André Ventura who is

01:23 here in Madrid after of course becoming the third biggest force in the

01:30 Portuguese Parliament. So quite a meeting to galvanize Vox ahead of the

01:37 European elections. Vox of course in the July national elections in Spain

01:42 actually lost about 19 seats and the biggest booster to Vox is the arrival

01:50 on Friday already of the Argentinian president Javier Mele. He has as you

01:56 said no official meetings with the actual Prime Minister of Spain Pedro

02:02 Sánchez but he's met Santiago Abascal the head of Vox the far-right party in

02:08 Spain. He's met him several times already. I hope those video conference

02:14 appearances were announced as such ahead of time otherwise I imagine a lot of

02:18 the attendees will be quite disappointed. But perhaps you can just touch a little

02:21 bit more on what Mele is trying to achieve here with this visit. Sell books

02:26 but also galvanize his politics? Yes indeed in fact he's actually met with

02:36 Spanish businesses, business representatives. He met them at a

02:41 reception at the Argentinian Embassy. Now we did put those Spanish companies in a

02:45 bit of a predicament who should they send since it was not a visit that's

02:50 being approved by the actual Spanish government. But we saw about 16

02:57 business representatives, top delegates from Santander, the bank from Repsol,

03:05 the big oil company. We saw Maffrey the multinational insurance company. All of

03:11 them with interests in Argentina. There to hear what Mele had to say to them.

03:17 He describes himself as a man who's going to take an axe, even he calls it a

03:24 chainsaw to public spending and going to shake up capitalism. And those businesses

03:30 came out telling the Spanish media that he had promised them that he would make

03:36 Argentina a more safe place, for businesses after some of the previous

03:43 governments that have re-nationalized and changed the laws affecting

03:49 international investors there. So he definitely wants international investors

03:53 but he's also becoming a lightning rod for the European elections because Pedro

03:59 Sánchez, speaking in Catalonia, basically said that the international

04:04 right was rallying in Madrid and that was because of the feminism and the

04:09 workers rights and that they intended to beat them in the European elections. And

04:14 the far-left leader Yolanda Díaz, head of SUMAR, she actually criticized

04:20 the businesses who had met with Mele saying that there were two things wrong

04:24 with it. One, there were no women in the photograph and she said the second one

04:28 there was no democratic decency. So these European elections in Spain are

04:33 certainly shaping up to be a very ideological fight between the left and

04:39 the right of the whole planet. Maybe some of the policies specifically, we also saw

04:45 the release of a conservative manifesto out of this conference. Yes we did, the

04:53 European Conservatives and Reformists group, they unveiled their manifesto and

04:57 that is the European grouping in the European Parliament where

05:02 Vox among other nationalist groups sit and basically they said that their

05:09 policies would include rejecting any unnecessary centralization, as they put

05:14 it, of power in Brussels, tightening up the borders and they said that only

05:20 genuine refugees should get through and they want more work with third countries

05:26 to stop illegal migrants as they see them getting in to the EU. They also

05:34 actually reject any creation of a European defence force, that's something

05:41 that some countries might like to see, particularly in the event of the

05:45 Ukrainian war. They also talk about revising the Green Deal and the terms of

05:53 the Pact. They have at least Vox certainly trying to tap into support

05:58 from farmers that are disgruntled by some of the environmental laws coming

06:04 out from the European Union and this group, the European Conservatives and

06:09 Reformists group, could be absolutely key, say some analysts, to Ursula von der

06:16 Leyen potentially securing a second term. Would she be willing is the big question

06:22 in Brussels and Strasbourg to work with some of these far-right groups that

06:27 form part of that group?

06:28 All right, Sarah Morris, thank you very much for that.

06:31 Our correspondent there in Madrid.

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