Statements by President of the Government during his attendance at events to celebrate Region of Madrid Day

Madrid

President of the Government.- A very good day to you all. Thank you very much for coming here. I would firstly like to congratulate the Regional Government of Madrid for the wonderful events it has organised this morning; I would also like to congratulate all the award-winners - you know them; I believe that the jury has done justice - and to thank the Army, the Police Force, the Guardia Civil, the Municipal Police, the skydivers and all those who have participated in the parade here this morning in Puerta del Sol. And congratulations to all those people of Madrid because today, 2 May, is the festival of the Region of Madrid.

For me it has been a pleasure and an honour to be here today. I am, moreover, an MP for Madrid. For many years I was an MP for Pontevedra, but recently I have stood for Madrid, and hence it gives me a two-fold satisfaction to be here today.

As far as what is happening at a national level in Spain, as you are aware, today was the last day for electing a President of the Government following the elections held on 20 December. For the reasons you are all aware of, this has not been possible and Parliament will publish a new call for elections, which will take place on 26 June.

I hope that this will be a calm and orderly campaign. I will obviously try to undertake a positive campaign. I am not going to get into arguments or fights, and far less get involved in verbal attacks, and let's hope that everyone else adopts the same attitude.

I am going to try to explain what we must do in Spain over the next four years; for me there are two key issues: the first, for any government to have a parliamentary majority because stability, security and certainty are very important for everything, including for the economy and for the smooth running of the country, and hence, I will work to this end, for a moderate, sensible government that holds a majority.

Secondly, my priority for the next four years will continue to be economic growth, job creation and for the recovery to filter down to all the people of Spain. There are two facts of great importance that have been published in the last week: the first is that we have seen the Labour Force Survey for the first quarter of this year, and there are now 575,000 more Spaniards working than this time last year, in other words, 575,000 jobs have been created. This is a very positive fact and the second positive fact is that on Friday we approved our forecasts for the next four years. If we do things well, by the end of 2019, there will be 20 million Spaniards in work, which will mean the creation of some 500,000 jobs a year.

This is the main challenge, this is the target and this is why, in my opinion, we should not change our economic policy, we must persevere with what we have been doing and I am sure that, if we act sensibly, with consideration and with common sense, we will achieve this.

Q.- (…) that no party wishes to make a pact with you.

Then, I would like to know if you have had a chance to spend a few minutes with Mr Rivera.

President of the Government.- No. I have seen him from a distance, upon coming in; and I imagine I will see him now.

As regards whether people want to make a pact with us or not, I am not going to get embroiled in this. What I want to do at this time is to make a pact with the people of Spain, and it will then be down to the Spanish people to decide through their vote on the composition of Parliament, after which we will get down to work.

However, I repeat, what has happened over these last four months must not happen again. Vetoes are bad for democracy and our party has been vetoed, because the other parties did not want to talk with the force that represents more than 7 million Spaniards, and I hope that we will now see a little common sense and that everyone will behave with a little sanity, because we are faced with a wonderful opportunity, the economic recovery is out there and the only thing that can ruin this is for things do be done that are not the most appropriate within what is normal political life.

Q.- Do you believe that the threat that Podemos may overtake the PSOE will force the latter to make a pact with the PP despite what Sánchez said on Saturday that he would never make a pact with the PP or with you?

President of the Government.- I don't know. I don't know what results Podemos will harvest from the elections, nor the PSOE, and I am not going to argue about what Sánchez did or did not say, because I was not present at that meeting. I am saying what I believe needs to be done, which is to form a moderate government that has parliamentary support to be able to govern. That means stability, that means security, that means certainty and that means bedding down the economic recovery.

What is clear is that vetoes do not contribute anything, whether in politics or in any other walk of life.

Thank you very much.