Spain’s Foreign Ministry published a statement on Wednesday, 21 October, expressing its strongest condemnation of insults and slander by Javier Milei against the prime minister, Spain and the Spanish people. It also roundly condemns what it calls a call to use violence, attributed to the Argentine president that morning.

The statement says Spain is a sovereign nation that does not accept external interference, nor attacks and insults against its president and elected institutions. It will not tolerate anyone clouding peaceful, democratic coexistence, the text adds.

It is “indigno”, the ministry writes, that a person holding the highest office of a sister nation should visit Spain with the sole aim of fostering a climate of polarisation and violence among Spaniards and between the sister nations of Spain and Argentina.

Milei, in Madrid, spoke at a Nueva Economía Fórum breakfast. El Mundo quotes him calling Pedro Sánchez an “impresentable dictador”, a “delincuente” and a “ladrón”, and urging Spaniards to kick the socialists out. Digi24, after AFP, places the speech weeks before the snap elections on 29 November.

Elma Saiz, the government spokesperson, asked for respect for Sánchez. Europa Press notes that Exteriores did not announce, in this statement, a diplomatic step such as summoning the ambassador, unlike the May 2024 crisis after comments about Begoña Gómez.

The Argentine president declared support for the right-wing opposition and for Vox, according to Digi24/AFP, and spoke of meetings with Vox leaders and with Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Those meetings belong to the visit agenda, not to an announced Spanish electoral alliance.

The Exteriores statement is a diplomatic declaration. It is not an expulsion and it is not an announced rupture of relations.

Image: TheRichic, Spanish Foreign Ministry HQ at Plaza del Marques de Salamanca, Madrid, 31 October 2023, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; the building in 2023, not Wednesday statement.

Sources consulted: Harsh Spanish government reaction after Milei called Prime Minister Sanchez a dictator - Digi24, 21 October 2026; Official statement on Javier Milei remarks - Spanish Foreign Ministry, 21 October 2026.