The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, on Monday presented to the president of Chile, José Antonio Kast, the International Medal of the Community of Madrid, highlighting his defense of security in the Latin American country.
In her speech at the Real Casa de Correos, Ayuso recalled that "Without security there is no freedom and without freedom there is no lasting prosperity. In just a few months in office, President Kast has placed these priorities at the center of his government action with the firm determination to return to Chileans tranquility, confidence, control of their own destiny, also order and an extraordinary commitment to children".
The Madrid leader maintained that Kast has resumed a "path" that already allowed Chile to "become one of the most powerful economies in the world" thanks to letting private initiative "unleash all its potential".
According to her, the Chilean president's project aims to "return to Chile the prominence it deserves among the great nations of the continent" and she stressed that "His determination is also showing one of the greatest challenges of our times and that the president and his team have ahead of them as a commitment to all nations that want to prosper and thus need it. And it is the fight against drug trafficking, against organized crime".
Díaz Ayuso explained that this award adds Kast to the list of distinguished personalities such as the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, that of Ecuador, Daniel Novoa, or the president-elect of Venezuela Edmundo González, a group of leaders that "respects the defense of freedom and the right of their peoples to direct their future".
The president also emphasized that Chile and Madrid are united by "much more than extraordinary relations", as they share "centuries of history and shared culture", as well as the same language and "a similar way of seeing life".
In the economic field, she emphasized that Madrid concentrates close to 60% of Chilean investment in Spain and that almost 90% of Spanish investment in Chile comes from the Community of Madrid.
"For us Chile is a fundamental ally, a strategic partner and above all a sister nation. And we are convinced that this will continue to be the case in the coming years because we have a lot ahead of us. The responsibility is ours to build toward the future, to project that alliance that unites us as Hispanic nations and as I said, in the economic and in the cultural, but also in politics and in values," she added.
Ayuso also referred to the "so difficult situation that she has inherited" from Kast in Chile, after the mandate of the leftist Gabriel Boric, and pointed out that now he will have to "once again promote policies that will not always be popular but neither populist" and that are "necessary" to bring forward "bold, far-reaching reforms from the beginning of the legislature".
In this sense, she defended that it is essential that citizens "trust in strong and guarantor institutions" as a prerequisite for prosperity, and warned that "Wealth is not going to multiply through prohibitions, certainly, but neither is prosperity going to be handed out from offices".
To conclude, the Madrid president claimed "Freedom in the face of imposition, law in the face of arbitrariness, security in the face of fear, prosperity in the face of resignation and the dignity of the person in the face of any project that tries to subjugate him. That is why this international medal for President Kast symbolizes a lot, the firm will to keep walking together".