Biden and Sánchez 'talked on a number of different issues', albeit 'just briefly', confirms the White House

WHITE House officials have confirmed Spain's president Pedro Sánchez did in fact 'have a separate conversation' with his US counterpart Joe Biden, 'briefly' and 'on a range of issues'.

Sánchez has come under fire from his dissenters for his having announced a meeting with Biden at Monday's NATO Summit in Brussels, and then this being seen as only a passing chat in the time it took to walk 20 metres.

As well as becoming 'meme fodder' for this fleeting encounter, Sánchez's opponents have criticised him for leaving it five months after Biden took up office to speak to him on a one-to-one basis, when several of the European Union's other major economies had already done so much earlier in the year.

But Sánchez's supporters say the short chat was mainly about both of them putting a face to a name, in a more personal way than via video-conference – as would have been the only safe method until very recently – and about introducing themselves and paving the way for future, closer working together.

The press briefing from the White House, a transcription of a media conference in the USA on the NATO Summit, confirmed Biden 'had the opportunity to meet with the leaders of the three Baltic countries: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania' and to 'discuss with them and coordinate with them' ahead of his planned meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

“[Biden] was able to communicate to [the three Baltic leaders] what he has communicated publicly, which is that the United States seeks a stable and constructive relationship with Russia, but will also respond in the face of Russia's harmful activities and will always stand up for NATO Allies,” the press call states.

“They also discussed the emerging security challenge posed by China, including in the domain of technology. And he thanked the three leaders for the steps that they have taken to support a trusted 5G platform – to not accept Huawei within their systems.

“They also had the opportunity to confer on Belarus and, in particular, the recent egregious air piracy that occurred with respect to a flight that was actually bound for Vilnius, Lithuania. And they had the opportunity to talk more broadly about, and an affirmative agenda around, emerging technologies and innovation.

“It was a constructive, warm, vigorous engagement between him and the three leaders, and a real symbol of solidarity and unity with NATO's eastern flank.”

These, according to the press briefing, were the only in-depth discussions Biden had with European leaders, with all the rest being relatively fleeting.

They included chats with the presidents of Poland and Romania as 'co-chairs of the Bucharest Nine', a group of eastern-flank NATO Allies Biden had spoken to at their recent virtual summit – on Monday, talking to them in Brussels, the US leader mainly reaffirmed his commitment to security, although 'got to go a little bit deeper' with the Polish president about the USA's 'security and military cooperation and engagement with Poland'.

Biden was able to 'see his colleagues who [had] just come with him from Cornwall and the G7', which Spain is not a part of at present but who included France's Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Concerning Sánchez, the press call transcript states: “[Biden] had the chance to talk to a number of other leaders as well, just very briefly – from the Prime Minister of Spain to the Prime Minister of The Netherlands – on a range of different issues.”

It does not reveal what these are, but confirms Sánchez did, in fact, engage in meaningful discussion with the USA's 46th president, even if only in the space of a minute or so, and that it was not limited to merely a mutual greeting.

This information was not able to be revealed to Sánchez's critics immediately, since the briefing was embargoed until 07.00 CEST, or mainland Spain time, on Tuesday.

The name of the Senior Administration Official from the White House conducting the press conference was given to those present for 'information only, not for reporting', and has not been released publicly.