Press conference by President of the Government

Madrid

President of the Government.- A very good afternoon to you. As you are all aware, I have just come out of Zarzuela Palace after being called there by H.M. the King as part of the round of talks taking place to endeavour to form a government in our country, in Spain.

H.M. the King offered me the opportunity to stand as candidate for the Presidency of the Government at the investiture session. I thanked him for this gesture and for the deference he showed me, but I told him that, now, at this time, I am not in a position to stand to be invested because not only do I not have a majority of votes in my favour, but I have an accredited absolute majority of votes against of at least 180 MPs.

I also said to him that I would continue working to achieve a sufficient majority and I will do so because I consider that the government formation I propose is the best solution for Spain; it is a moderate option; it is an option that would have the support of 250 MPs in the Lower House and an absolute majority in the Upper House; and it is an option that responds to the general interests of the Spanish people and the majority feeling of those citizens that believe in the unity of Spain, in national sovereignty, in the equality of the Spanish people and in consolidating the economic and social recovery that we are now enjoying in Spain, together with job creation.

Hence, I maintain my candidature to the Presidency of the Government, but I do not yet have sufficient support to stand to be invested and I do not have this, above all, because we have seen this morning a proposed agreement which would include many more votes in favour than mine and, above all, with far fewer votes against than mine. And hence, it makes no sense for me to continue preparing my Investiture Debate while others are already sharing out cabinet posts.

There is something else that I would also like to make clear: the aim of the Investiture Debate is for the candidate to win a vote of confidence in the Lower House, and to thus be elected as President of the Government, and thenceforth, be able to form a stable government. That is the goal of the investiture session in Parliament. And, as I have said, I am not in a position to hold a majority in the Lower House at this time. And what the Investiture Debate absolutely does not exist for is for the clock to start ticking on the constitutional deadlines. I am not going to put myself forward to that out of respect for the more than 7 million Spaniards who placed their trust in and support for the People's Party.

As I said, I am not renouncing anything. I have not said "no" to my investiture. What I have conveyed is that, for the time being, I do not have the necessary support and I believe that we must allow a period of time and certain room for dialogue to the benefit of the general interests of Spain and the Spanish people. I believe that this is worthwhile because we are a great nation and our political leaders should rise to the occasion. And I would say to all the people of Spain: I don't have enough votes today, and hence it makes no sense for me to go there with the only goal of starting the clock ticking on the two-month deadline established by the Spanish Constitution.

I will take any questions.

Q.- I understand from your words that you have taken the decision not to present your candidature this very morning upon hearing that Pablo Iglesias is to be Mr Sánchez's Vice-President of the Government.

A second question. I would like to know whether you completely rule out taking a step backwards in this whole process, should the need arise.

President of the Government.- In reality, your questions can be answered in a single phrase: I maintain my candidature. The question is that at this time I do not have enough votes to win a vote of confidence. And it is clear that what we have heard announced this morning affects my decision. I maintain my candidature but I cannot present this because, as everyone knows, I do not only not have enough votes, but I have a majority against me. That is why I cannot tell the people who have voted for me, nor can I tell the people of Spain, out of loyalty to them, that I am going to present myself to an investiture session if I am not going to come out winning and hence start the clock ticking. I am not going to do that.

Q.- President of the Government, what makes you think that in the future you may have enough votes to stand to be invested or, to put it another way, do you trust that Pedro Sánchez will go back on the option that he is pursuing at this time?

President of the Government.- It is clear that Pedro Sánchez wants something other than what I am trying to achieve at this time, isn't it? Pedro Sánchez wants a pact with Podemos - he needs that - with the United Left and with the Catalan parties; principally with Esquerra Republicana and with Convergència i Unió, not with the other Catalan parties, which, by the way, are in the majority.

I believe that this is not what Spain needs and I said this on the day after the elections. I propose an agreement between the People's Party, the Socialist Party and Ciudadanos. This would give us a very clear majority in Parliament, we could undertake reforms, we could do this by consensus and we would send out a positive message to investors both within Spain and abroad, and also to the markets - a positive message that would generate confidence and security in the Spanish economy,

I fear that the government being proposed by Mr Sánchez is neither a moderate nor a well-focused government, and I fear that it will be very difficult to govern when, in the Upper House, the People's Party has an absolute majority at this time. We must try to form a government that is not only a question of numbers, but which also has a certain coherence, where certain goals are set and which can agree on certain measures.

Q.- The press statement from the Royal Household states that a new round of talks will start next Wednesday. Do you believe that you will have made any progress by the time this next round takes place and that you may have more votes in your favour than against? What do you plan to do to achieve that? Will you start a new round of talks? Will you call Mr Sánchez for a meeting? Will you call Mr Rivera? Will you make some kind of concession?

President of the Government.- Mr Sánchez hasn't wanted to speak with me, hence, it is very difficult to propose anything. He has, quite simply, refused to speak with me. Even when there was an agreement on the table in the Lower House, he refused to accept that there was an agreement when everyone knew that there was an agreement.

I hope that Mr Sánchez knows how to speak with people. The thing is that I start to get the feeling that he likes speaking with Podemos, with Esquerra Republicana and with Convergència i Unió, but that he doesn't want to speak with the main party in Spain which has the support of more than 7 million Spaniards.

So, I will continue trying to speak with Mr Sánchez and with all the political leaders, but it is clear, and this is what has been announced, that Mr Sánchez is now operating with Podemos and with other political forces. He is perfectly entitled to do so and I am perfectly entitled to propose an alternative to this.

Q.- Along the same line, President of the Government, could you be a little more precise, because there are people accusing you of inactivity, or paralysis, of continuing to block this process, because you have no made a specific offer nor do we know, for example, if you have called Ciudadanos again, or if you are thinking of arranging a new meeting, because you are giving us the feeling that the People's Party and you yourself, in this case, have done nothing since that first appearance? How would you counter this accusation?

President of the Government.- Just a few days after holding the elections, I held a conversation with Mr Sánchez, which lasted a short while because he said to me that under no circumstance would he support nor provide anything to the People's Party. I also spoke with Mr Rivera and with Mr Iglesias. I told Mr Rivera that I was going to propose what I did indeed propose, that is, a government between the People's Party, the Socialist Party and Ciudadanos, because that seemed the only sensible, moderate and reasonable thing to do at that time in Spain.

Aside from that, Mr Sánchez has chosen not to speak with me. My proposals are clear. What I find truly surprising is that I am still being asked to implement them.

I have proposed a three-party coalition. I said that this coalition may be governmental in nature, parliamentary, with support from outside…That is not important, because we are prepared to talk about this issue; what is important is that we send out a message of stability, security and certainty, and that Spain has a government with support because there are other members of a party in a government or which support it from outside. Hence, that is the first thing I proposed.

The second thing I said is that this government agrees on the key issues. Although there are things that we do not agree upon, we do agree on the major issues that concern the people of Spain; we agree on national unity, we agree on the equality of the Spanish people, we agree on national sovereignty, we agree on the model of Europe, we agree on the need to meet our European commitments, we agree on the fight against terrorism and are playing our part, and we agree on the main national goals, although we may disagree on the measures to achieve them, which are none other than economic growth and job creation, Hence, there are many things we agree on and, of course, if there is a will then there is a way to reach an agreement.

Thirdly, there are four priorities, as I have said, that need to be done in the future, in my opinion: first, grow and create jobs. This remains the main priority for Spain at this time; despite the tremendous progress that has already been made there are still far too many Spaniards without a job.

The second main priority is to consolidate our welfare model. I consider that it is very important to consolidate our system of public pensions, healthcare, education, social services… We have managed to maintain this in recent years, despite tremendous economic difficulties, and we must ensure that these things do not happen again in the future.

The third main objective is to defend national unity, now that battle-lines are being drawn up against Spain, as you are all aware and does not need reiterating.

And fourthly, the fight against terrorism.

Hence, aside from that, we all have our own election manifesto. We may reach agreement on some things while on others we may not, or they can be put to one side or a renewed effort be made.

So, these are my proposals, which I have not been able to convey to Mr Sánchez because he has refused to listen to me - that is something that had never before happened to me in public life - to speak with the party which, furthermore, won the elections.

Q.- In this three-way coalition you propose, would you be prepared to pass the presidency on to any other candidate aside from yourself?

President of the Government.- It is very important to respect the will of the people and the people have voted for the People's Party, whose candidate has a 1.7-million vote lead over the second placed candidate. What are we going to start to do? Are we going to do things like in other countries, operations in different areas whereby we remove one from here, add one there or leave things as they are? Democracy must be respected and votes must be respected, and the People's Party has clearly won the elections. And the People's Party has a candidate. I believe that we must make an effort to learn from each other in order not to play games with the will of the people.

Q.- Some socialist leaders are already saying that the offer made by Mr Iglesias to Pedro Sánchez is humiliating and shows a lack of respect for the voters are rank and file of the PSOE. I wanted to know whether you trust that these socialist leaders will be able to put the brakes on Mr Sánchez and whether you are prepared to speak with them.

President of the Government.- No. My representatives must necessarily be those decided on by the political parties at each moment and I am not going to go into the offer made by Mr Iglesias, nor any guessing games. I will not go into any of that.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.