Spain’s Transport Minister Óscar Puente on 5 November 2026, King Felipe VI criticised for a brief handshake with journalist Javier Negre at the inauguration of Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella in Cali . In posts on X (formerly Twitter) on 10 and 11 August 2026, Puente called the image of the encounter an “absoluta ignominia” and argued that, as a “símbolo del Estado”, the monarch should give greater consideration to the impact of public gestures outside a protocol setting.
Photos and videos show King Felipe VI shaking Negre’s hand and exchanging a few words with him on 7 August 2026, on the sidelines of events in the Colombian city of Cali. Negre is known in Spain as a journalist and founded the platform Estado de Alarma . Puente called him an “activista de ultraderecha” and “profesional del bulo”, and pointed out that Negre had repeatedly seriously insulted the Queen and the King in the past. In Puente’s view, such an image harms the public role of the head of state if it is not part of an institutional relationship.
The scene took place around the inauguration of Abelardo de la Espriella, held in Cali on 7 August 2026, which King Felipe VI attended as a guest. Spanish media circulated footage of the brief encounter, which, according to Puente, did not take place as part of an official protocol sequence. The minister’s remarks quickly became a domestic political issue on social media; the debate centres on the balance between the monarch’s representative reserve and the everyday accessibility of public appearances abroad.
It is established that King Felipe VI and Javier Negre greeted one another and that Óscar Puente publicly criticised the encounter. The gesture remains politically contested and, following Puente’s argument, hinges on the question of which contacts a head of state in Colombia outside a strictly institutional setting are considered unobjectionable. No further official assessment of the specific scene had been issued by Monday; the debate is based mainly on the circulating images and Puente’s posts on X.
Editor: Phillipe Schmidt-Araguin (Article created with AI assistance).