I wish to thank, first of all, the Association of European Journalists and, in particular, its President, Diego Carcedo, for his words, and its Secretary-General, Miguel Ángel Aguilar, as well as the Carlos de Amberes Foundation, the host of today's event, for this invitation to talk to you about the projects for the Spanish EU Presidency of the first half of 2010.
We still have some months ahead of us, but we already know that our Presidency will be demanding and committed. There are some months still ahead, and the truth is that not much is being said yet about the Spanish EU Presidency, and I am convinced that the Association of European Journalists, which has played a decisive role in our European commitment, will revitalize the debate on the goals and challenges of our Presidency.
A Europeanist country like Spain could have no other stance. We are going to undertake the Presidency during complex and uncertain times; complex and uncertain for the international community, for each of its States, and also for the European Union, both regarding its current situation and its future.
We need, as rarely before in recent decades, a strong Europe, one that knows how to lead. And, as this is not guaranteed today, our commitment to that idea of Europe must be even greater, if possible, at this time.
Please allow me, then, to begin this talk by discussing Europe, Europe today; in other words, a Europe faced with the current severe global economic crisis; a Europe faced with the challenge of creating a sustainable, balanced production model; a Europe faced with the unresolved challenge of its own political integration; a Europe, in short, in the midst of an undoubtedly desirable, but still difficult, transition towards a multipolar system of international relations-because all of this is at stake for Europe, now and in forthcoming months.
It is, therefore, this reality, which can be viewed with hope but also with a fear of frustration, where Spain will exercise, with all its consequences, in a committed and demanding manner, its Presidency.
Lest there be any doubt, my intention here is not to invite theoretical reflection --which is, nevertheless, always welcome-- regarding the European project; what I am proposing seems to me more urgent: it is to seek solutions and to correctly define the role of Europe, of the Union, of its institutions and of its agents for a present, and an immediate future, clouded by uncertainty.
I will try to express this clearly, in order to convey the intensity of my conviction: European leadership in these times of crisis will determine, to a great extent, when and how the Member States will overcome it, and the leadership of Europe in these changing times will determine the structure of the new international financial system and the greater or lesser level of commitment to a fair and balanced international order, to combating climate change, and to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. True, all of this does not depend solely on the leadership of Europe, on the Union's responsible and active role; but without it, none of the above will be the same. And for Spain, for the majority Spanish citizens, it will be worse; without a doubt, much worse. For Spain, the success of this approach will be the key to its own success.
In short, and paraphrasing some well-known words, Europe must be, at this uncertain foundational juncture the world finds itself in today, an indispensable power. Indispensable, which is the opposite of dispensable.
In my opinion, the Union has shown positive attitudes, attitudes of leadership, in its reaction to September's financial meltdown, but we cannot feel so proud of other behaviours we have been seeing in some corners of the Union these months. There have been some disturbing symptoms of anti-European nationalism, of xenophobia, and temptations of protectionism have also reared their ugly heads. Nor have we always, in this most recent period, found the right leadership balance within the Union, or harmonized the Council's institutional leadership with that of some Member States, or jointly promoted the more active role that we all seem to want, and also the role we must acknowledge for the Commission.
In order to achieve all these goals we need a strong Europe, the one we began to design with the Lisbon Treaty. The Europe of integration, of solidarity, of innovation, of competitiveness, of education and of citizenship, and the Europe with a single voice in the world, once and for all.
For a stronger Europe, the Lisbon Treaty created strong institutions: a President of the European Council who must be a figure with political weight, an effective High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security, an independent and dynamic European Commission, with a European Parliament to reinforce responsibilities.
If events unfold as expected, the implementation of the Treaty will essentially take place during the Spanish Presidency, but at this moment in time, this depends on the Irish referendum. Ireland, incidentally, is not the cause of our weakness, of Europe's weakness, but rather its result.
As you know, the Irish Government has pledged to hold, before the end of the current European Commission's mandate, that is to say, before next 1 November, a new referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. I trust that the Irish people will appreciate the effort made-to the extent of its possibilities-by the European Council in defining the scope of the issues conveyed to it by the Government of Ireland; that they will not only consider this, but also, above all, their interest in supporting the Treaty to build that stronger Europe, which could well be more urgent in the eyes of the Irish during these times of severe crisis affecting us all.
Spain is fervently hoping for this support. For the Spanish Presidency it will doubtless be easier to work towards strengthening Europe implementing the new institutional framework; but we will seek this goal regardless, with or without the new Treaty, and we have foreseen these two scenarios.
In addition, to a certain extent, we are going to get ahead of Lisbon by doing something truly innovative, which is to prepare our Presidency in coordination, naturally, with the preceding Presidency-Sweden in this case-and also, as a trio, together with the two subsequent ones, Belgium and Hungary, which will give the process greater continuity and be beneficial to all Europeans. The State Secretariat for the European Union, led by the Minister, has been working on this in recent months, and an agreement was concluded precisely yesterday evening.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Fifty years ago, Europe was built on economic and energy development, along with agriculture, with the common market and with what Schuman called the "de facto solidarities".
For the Government of Spain, today, in a globalized world, the strength of Europe must be based on two major principles: the capacity to generate innovation in all fields, the will to transform, and the promotion of equality in its diverse expressions, both within the Union and outside Europe. All the actions of our Presidency will by guided by these two cross-cutting driving ideas.
We understand innovation not only as technological but also as economic, institutional and political. Innovation is the sine qua non for Europeans to successfully overcome the crisis, with the real possibility of creating new and better jobs. Nothing could be more the opposite of this great goal than becoming a sort of huge museum with no weight in the world.
The second idea is equality. Europe has led the fight for equal opportunities and for solidarity among social groups, among regions and among States; and also externally, as it has become the largest global donor of development aid; and for gender equality. The world we are now building needs to intensify in equality, solidarity and cohesion. Europe's leadership today requires asserting this hallmark.
Innovation and equality will give meaning to and inspire the three priorities of our Presidency:
- Firstly, advancing towards a new economic model that will place Europe at the forefront of global competitiveness and enable a better and easier solution to the current economic and financial crisis.
- Secondly, restating and intensifying Social Europe, a Europe that shows solidarity towards its citizens and towards its neighbouring populations.
- Finally, adapting to the new multipolar context of a Union that should have a single voice and act as one.
The European dimension has been present from the outset in the measures we have taken to address the crisis. There has been European coordination-and not only among States, but also with institutions, within the Council and through the leadership of the Commission-to launch a stimulus initiative of 200 billion euros, 1.5% of Community GDP.
At the G-20 Summit in Washington we chose the path of a coordinated solution to the crisis. Now, in early April, in London, we must complete this task by working together to design a new financial system, which cannot wait too long. Prior to this, preparatory meetings will be held between the 27 and the European Governments that will meet in London, to harmonize our positions. The European Union must go to London prepared to speak with a single voice and lead a meeting that should transcend joint statements and make decisions for the short and medium term, through efforts that will continue in the future.
I need not remind you now what it means for Spain to be part of this global foundational project, having joined the group of countries leading it. For unfortunate, well-known historical reasons, we were not present at Bretton Woods, San Francisco or, even, Rome. Now we have recovered our rightful place as a country.
This real opportunity to assert the position of the European Union would not have been possible without what is now one of our main assets: the euro. The role of the European Central Bank, in providing the financial system with liquidity and fostering lower interest rates, is now decisive and will continue to be decisive in overcoming the situation.
What I would say to the euro naysayers-there are always naysayers to almost everything-who go around spreading the idea that the now decade-old Monetary Union is endangered, is that the single currency has been, and remains, a stronghold of stability which, above all, is the most substantial and decisive value in such uncertain times as these. It is no coincidence, therefore, that a long waiting list is forming to join the Monetary Union.
Creating the most dynamic and economically most competitive area in the world was the goal we set out for ourselves when we adopted what is known as the "Lisbon Strategy", also a decade ago, when the euro was launched. This innovative course has had positive results, albeit below the initial expectations. We need a strengthened European economic strategy, with new instruments to build a Europe of innovation and employment. We cannot wait another decade to achieve this.
Therefore, during the Spanish Presidency we will promote a thorough review, which means a review reaching into the roots of the Lisbon Strategy. To do so, coordination will not be enough. In the medium and long term, we must think of more advanced strategies. Following the experience of this crisis, we must take courageous and audacious steps which will, this time, truly enable us to make the European Union soon become the most dynamic economic area in the world.
To succeed in transforming Europe into the driving force behind the global economy and advance towards political union, we must also make progress towards a common energy policy. And it is, once again, during our Presidency, when the 2nd Three-Year Energy Action Plan 2010-2012 will have to be implemented. We must also move forward with the plan for major infrastructures in Europe.
The European Union must continue to be at the forefront in combating global warming and its effects. The results of the Summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen next December, which will lay the foundations for post-Kyoto policy, will largely depend on us Europeans remaining united and with clear goals. And the outlook of the new Obama Administration is very encouraging with respect to the policy change that the United States will uphold.
Thus, this is the first priority of the Spanish Presidency: continuing the struggle to leave the crisis behind us and to build a new, more competitive-and especially, more innovative and more sustainable-economic model, staunchly advocating sustainability as the main axis of the most advanced and most innovative economies in the medium term.
The second priority is to advance towards Social Europe: social rights, and effective equality between European women and men. It is, in sum, a matter of recovering and strengthening the social aspects of the concept and practice of European citizenship.
In spite of the mistrust so persistently spread, in such a self-interested manner, for some years by neoconservative thinkers, the European economic and social model has become the model to follow in order to overcome this crisis.
It is necessary to update and strengthen these economic and social cohesion policies, which have had such good results in Spain, amongst other countries, and which can now be extended to those countries and regions which were last to join the European Union. Therefore, we propose promoting a new statute on Ultra-Peripheral Regions.
Moreover, I propose to advance in the creation of a European civil society definitively grounded in gender equality, expanding into public and private spaces that are still reticent, and making the fight against gender violence a European objective, enhanced with the best practices of some of the Member States.
Perhaps one of the programmes which, over time, has contributed the most to building Europe from its very foundations has been that of Erasmus student grants. I am going to propose expanding these kinds of programmes to other facets of professional life.
We are also going to use the Spanish Presidency as a platform to continue forging a truly European immigration policy. We hope to make significant progress in the full integration of immigrants into our societies; in the creation of a framework for fluid dialogue and cooperation with the countries of origin and transit of migration; and in the establishment of new systems to control our external borders.
Particularly, Spain has developed a national immigration policy. We have achieved this in Spain without having experienced outbreaks of xenophobia such as those that we have seen, and are seeing, elsewhere. We have managed to convey our viewpoint to the European Union and, along with the other Member States, to begin building a common policy, together.
Our basic goal has to be the strengthening of the values of freedom, human dignity, security, and justice-in other words, the defining, and therefore inalienable, characteristics of the Europe in which we believe.
A new dimension for our Presidency: 2010 will be the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, which is tantamount to proclaiming a year of solidarity, looking both inside and outside of the Union's borders.
In London, and of course during our Presidency, we are going to insist that during these times of global financial crisis and economic slowdown, we must make a special effort to prevent developing countries from experiencing a decline in their channels and flows of financing-financing necessary to achieve their development goals.
My Government maintains its commitment to devoting 0.7% of its GDP to Official Development Assistance by the end of the current term of Parliament. Combating hunger and poverty should continue to be a priority objective for Spanish cooperation policy, and for European cooperation.
In my opinion, Europe's leadership in the future is going to depend, to a large extent, on its growing commitment to development cooperation policy; a policy, a commitment, let us not forget, that has dual value: on the one hand, an undisputable and pressing moral value; and on the other, the prevention of conflicts that perpetuate extreme poverty.
European cooperation for the development of peoples enables us to renovate European ideals. The foundational idea of Europe was that of peace. Peace continues to be the ultimate aspiration of Europe, but peace for all can no longer be conceivable without solidarity.
Consequently, we would like the Spanish Presidency to be judged, as well, on the advances made regarding the European social model, effective equality between men and women, a common immigration policy, and development cooperation. I cannot, nor do I wish to, forget the defence of human rights, which is one of the fundamental pillars of European construction, and of its projection abroad. Unfortunately, Europe has lost ground in this area, and we must regain it.
And thus I move on to address, lastly, our third priority.
A multipolar world offers Europe fresh opportunities for leadership, but we must know how to take advantage of them. We are the world's number-one trading power, the number-one donor of foreign aid, and the second in terms of military capacity. If we want to assert these attributes on the international scene, it is essential to move forward with the integration of our External and Security Policy. And both the open-ended current situation and the Lisbon Treaty offer us excellent opportunities to do so.
To begin with, I want the Spanish Presidency to throw its support behind getting Croatia into the European Union, and behind Turkey's aspirations to enter the Union. This great country has been waiting too long at its gates.
I want the Spanish Presidency to be distinguished for being Euro-American, in the widest sense of the term.
Of course, we have to concede central importance to the European Union's relationship with Latin American and the Caribbean, working intensely towards the strengthening of this strategic bi-regional partnership that we have been building in recent years.
Here, we will put all of our efforts into the 6th Summit between Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean, so that it may represent a qualitative step forward in strengthening the essential relationship between two regions of the world that share strong historical, social, cultural, and economic ties; and now definitively, democratic values and principles, as well, and a commitment to peace, human rights, and multilateralism.
We aspire to making a reality the signature of the Association Agreement between the Union and Central America, the first of the Agreements between these two regional blocs.
In this new, trailblazing multipolar world, Europe and the United States should continue to be allies and essential partners. We have a wonderful opportunity to strengthen the transatlantic relationship with the new U.S. Administration, but Europe should also be able to respond to these expectations, to rise to the occasion. And what should work for combating climate change, and for the trade negotiations to finally sign off on the Doha Round, should also work in order to take on more responsibilities in peacekeeping and international security, most especially in our own vicinity, but also farther afield, when world peace is at stake.
In 2010, it will have been fifteen years since Spain, during a former Presidency, under another Socialist government, promoted what came to be called the New Transatlantic Agenda, to improve relations between the European Union and the United States. Therefore, we propose that the European Union-United States Summit, which we will hold in the spring of 2010, approve a Renewed Transatlantic Agenda.
The Neighbourhood Policy is also going to take pride of place during our Presidency, both regarding the Union for the Mediterranean (Euro-Med), for which we hope to hold a Summit to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Barcelona Process, and regarding Morocco, where we hope to move forward on the Advanced Statute of Association already reached.
Furthermore, the Spanish Presidency will look to Africa, a continent whose importance to us grows daily. In this case, our relations are based on two cornerstones: the European Union-Africa Comprehensive Policy Dialogue and the Joint European Union-Africa Strategy, approved at the latest Lisbon Summit.
As to Russia, we should integrate this country into the Euro-Atlantic space currently under construction. The attitude of the current Russian leaders, as well as that of the Obama Administration, opens up a window of opportunity that we should take advantage of, and that we cannot decline under any circumstances.
We will also carry out wide-ranging activities abroad in other parts of the world, promoting relations with Asia. Specifically, I would like to highlight the relationship and the Summit with Japan, and we will continue to promote our relations, already quite consolidated, with China and India. The renaissance of China-and I say renaissance because in 1820 China accounted for 33% of the world's GDP-and of India is one of the greatest changes in our world this century.
And naturally, there is the Middle East and the efforts that we Europeans must make to achieve regional stability and peace, beginning with a fresh start that, first, consolidates the ceasefire, and then makes it possible to once again set a peace process between Israelis and Palestinians on the right path.
We are going to resolutely promote the Common European Security and Defence Policy. Naturally, in this area, whether or not the Lisbon Treaty enters into effect is no small matter.
We will try to promote the development of the revised European Security Strategy, presenting strategic objectives regarding operations, capacities, and partnerships. Previously, because the two are closely linked, we propose to draw up a National Security Strategy, which I think will be very useful for the work of the Administration, as well as for making our citizens understand the challenges that we face.
Later, we will pay close attention to relations between the European Union and NATO, and we will study the possibility of proposing the creation of a specific format of the Council, with Ministers of Defence.
In particular, I would like our Presidency to enable us to advance towards our goal of achieving an effective moratorium on the death penalty in 2015.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As you can see, Spain is preparing a Presidency with a very ambitious agenda. Our diplomats are working at full speed. I am aware of this, just as I am also aware-and we have the recent experience of the French Presidency-that unforeseeable issues could arise that would condition the implementation of this agenda, and compel us to adjust our priorities. But our point of departure should be ambitious.
The Presidency is a great opportunity for Spain, and it arrives at a time that is so decisive for Europe, because it is so decisive for the world.
At this point, I can tell you that we have drawn up a detailed plan including all of the scheduled meetings and the agendas for these meetings, from the European Councils to the working groups set to meet during those six months.
The Spanish Presidency constitutes a challenge that goes beyond the governmental sphere to become the paradigm of a State issue, one above party interests and aimed at forging a great national project.
Therefore, we will make a special effort to reach a consensus on the programme of the Presidency with the parliamentary groups, first, and with Spain's Autonomous Communities. To this effect, I intend to soon launch a process of consultations with all of these agents, to inform them of these plans and to seek their ideas and their support in order to expand and improve them. Then, logically, we will present the plan in Parliament, in the Congress of Deputies.
This will be, undoubtedly, the central event of the current term of Parliament and of the next few years for Spain, one which should be shared openly and transparently with the whole of society, with our citizens, the Spaniards, who have always been so European and so Europeanist. This is the reason for my presence here at this Association, sharing these views with civil society, with a large group of persons, of Spanish Europeanists, such as the members of this Association, who have contributed, and can contribute during this period, in such a decisive manner to the success and the achievement of the Spanish Presidency's goals.
As it turns out, a few months from now everyone will have the chance to participate in the European Parliament elections, and therefore, to raise their awareness of the importance-which the different political forces should be able to express to them-of the Union and its future.
As you know, the next elections will, inevitably, have to be held in accordance with the Nice rules, so that in Spain we will be electing fifty MEPs-four fewer than those that we would have if the Lisbon Treaty were in effect. However, I would like to note here that the European Council has decided in favour of our appeal, and so we will get these four seats back when this entry into force occurs.
Ladies and gentlemen,
In a world of uncertainty, where we have experienced the collapse of the great models inherited from the past century, in order to emerge from this crisis we need a model, and a deep commitment from Governments and societies. This model is Europe, because Europe is, above all, the Pax Europea, and because the Pax Europea means peaceful coexistence, rights, wellbeing, creativity, and freedom. It is the guarantee guiding us in a multipolar world, which measures its stability in terms of achieving sustainable development with solidarity.
This Pax Europea will be based on equality and innovation, as the two key values for the present and the future. This Pax Europea is, as we have known so well for three decades now, the best way for Spain to defend, as Europeans, its principles and its interests.
At a time when all the efforts of Europe and the rest of the world will come together to reshape an agenda able to overcome the confusion and uncertainty of the present, and at a time when we will receive the proposals for a future agenda for the European Union from the Reflection Group chaired by Felipe González, I believe that the only alternative for Spain will be to exercise a transformative Presidency, rather than a caretaker Presidency. I believe that the only alternative for Europe will be to fortify its institutions, in the eyes of Europeans and of the world. As Salvador de Madariaga once said, "Europe will not become a reality until it is one in the conscience of its people."
Today, I would like to end by expressing my conviction that Europe, with a Spanish Presidency, will indeed be able to rise to this historic occasion, consolidating and transforming policies to make the Union ever more perfect; its objectives, more shared; and its institutions, more flexible and responsive to the will and aspirations of its citizens.
Thank you very much.