Speech by President of the Government at meeting with Spanish colony in Uruguay

Montevideo

Good afternoon.

Uruguay has received tens of thousands of Spanish emigrants over the course of its history, many of them from my land of birth which, as most people know, is Galicia. The quality of the hospitality they found here is something that the Government of Spain has not forgotten and that is why our country will always owe a debt of gratitude to the people of Uruguay.

One of the main goals of my visit here is to personally thank you for bringing the best of our values to this land, which are many, by the way, and which, despite the fact that many of you have spent most of your lives here, you have made a great effort to always maintain your ties with your Spanish homeland alive. Evidence of this are the more than 40 Spanish centres and institutions, which might sound easy to say, some of which have been in existence for more than a century and a half. It is a source of pleasure to me to know that almost all of these centres are represented here, according to what the ambassador just told me.

The Spanish people who, over the course of time, have laid down roots here in Uruguay, have contributed, and it is also only fair to say that, and they have done so in a decisive fashion, to building this country, a model country in so many respects, contributing, together with their human qualities, their talent and desire for entrepreneurship. Through this they have greatly helped to forge the wonderful bilateral relations that Spain and Uruguay maintain at present, a relationship such as very few others countries in the world have. That is why I would like to send my warm greetings to all of those who are here and also to the whole Spanish community from the various regions of our country.

I would also like to mention other people in this speech, also Spaniards, who have arrived more recently and who have done so - I have had the chance to greet some of them just now - representing our companies. I want you to know that your presence here is closely related to the confidence our country places in Uruguay's potential and which, as well as contributing through your know-how and seriousness to the development and prosperity of our sister nation, you are heading up, to a certain degree, a new phase for the Spanish economy, characterised by increasing interest in the foreign trade sector.

Today, Spain is a cutting-edge country in many sectors, from renewable energies to telecommunications, financial services and the construction and management of infrastructures. A great part of the economic growth and job creation recorded at present in Spain is due to the expansion of our companies overseas. This is a very positive fact, because all of you know that in Spain we have gone through the worst economic crisis in decades, with five straight years of negative economic growth, with many jobs shed, with many problems with our competitiveness and with threats from all sides which, in the end, the Spanish people have had the courage, determination, desire and talent to overcome.

From among these Spanish people, we should very particularly remember the efforts of many business leaders who, in a very difficult situation, were able to look overseas and were able to see that there many other things in the world in addition to those very good and very important things that we have at home, and from having a foreign trade sector that represented 25% of our GDP, it now amounts to almost 35%.

This activity by many Spanish business owners was very important - not just the major corporations, which always did this; but also the small- and medium-sized enterprises - for Spain to now recover its position from the very serious economic crisis we went through.

I am absolutely convinced, and the evidence is available - these are different concepts - that the seriousness and competitiveness of Spanish companies that have committed to investing here are well recognised and greatly appreciated by the Uruguayan authorities and, in general, by all the people of Uruguay. The number of companies now exceeds 100, generating more than 24,000 jobs and we are the second largest investor in Uruguay and the leading investor in the services sector, a sector that has an accumulated investment amounting to some 3.5 billion dollars.

I am absolutely convinced that in the coming years our companies will continue to contribute to improving priority sectors for the Government of Uruguay. I am aware of the interest of the authorities in decisively improving infrastructures. We want to be part of that, as we have been on other occasions. Tomorrow, I will have the chance to attend a meeting between business leaders from both countries. I am absolutely convinced that there will be an exchange of opinions, which will be fruitful and which will serve to ensure what, at the end of the day, we all want to see - an improvement in well-being and wealth, in this case, of all the people of Uruguay and of Spain.

As you know, the President of Uruguay, Tabaré Vázquez, visited Spain in November last year. He was with me in Madrid and we then went to Santiago de Compostela, the city in which I was born, the city in which I went to university and the city where, in fact, I started out on my political career, aged 26, in the first regional parliament in the history of Galicia. Many of those people here from Galicia will remember that this regional parliament - you will certainly remember this, Mr Ambassador - had nowhere to go. It had nowhere to go because there were no premises that could host the Regional Parliament of Galicia, and so we were lent premises by the archbishop. In other words, we were lent Gelmírez Palace but not charged for its use, which was a very positive fact.

That was a very encouraging period, which I have fond memories of because, as I said before, I was only 26 years old and starting out on my political career. I was on the parliamentary board, as the second deputy secretary. Later on, after being part of the Provincial Government of Pontevedra, I returned as Vice-President of the Regional Government of Galicia. Hence, for me, Santiago de Compostela, for a great many reasons, is a city I will always hold dear to my heart.

I apologise for digressing. What I was saying is that the president was there, reviewing bilateral relations with me, which are wonderful and I believe that, between all the people of Uruguay, of Galicia and of Spain as a whole, we will always understand each other very well. We share everything with Uruguay: we obviously share our common origins, we share our history and we share a language, and it is very good that our bilateral agenda and hence, our bilateral relations, not only between governments, but also between companies, as I said before, and between individuals, are increasingly improving and that we are able to share more things in more areas.

I would like to say to you that Uruguay - I say this to you, in this case, as an outsider - is a country respected throughout the world, and greatly so, with 14 straight years of economic growth. At this time it holds a post on the United Nations Security Council, a post that Spain left vacant on 31 December last year, 2016. If, to all of our historical ties and everything that unites us, above all people because… At the end of the day, institutions are all well and good and companies are very important, but, above all as people what is important is that we are united by personal relations and these I clearly believe to be continuing to improve.

I believe that the work done by Spanish Cooperation in Uruguay is also very important. Montevideo has become the centre of Spanish Cooperation in South America. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all those that work at our Cultural and Cooperation Centres, because they are key institutions. They do things and make a great contribution to our bilateral relations.

Before closing I would like to particularly greet, if you will allow me, our elderly folk from Hogar Español, who are accompanying us here today, who I can see here and who symbolise, better than anything, the brotherhood that exists between our two countries. Spain and Uruguay are two countries which, over the course of time have gone through both good times and bad; but we have always stood together and I believe that the residents of Hogar Español are the best possible representatives of this shared history. I will greet them shortly in a very special manner.

I thank all of you very much for coming here today. I didn't want, during my speech, because it didn't make much sense, to give a lengthy explanation of how things are in Spain at this time. I have only made a brief reference to that. We are living in complicated times and everyone thought that all sorts of bad things were going to happen to us, clearly nothing good, but what is true is that history is there to be written and what you must never do is give up. The people of Spain did not give up and, five years after being on the verge of bankruptcy, they can boast - because there are times in one's life in which you should boast and, furthermore, do this with pride - that we are the country with the fastest rate of economic growth in Europe, the country which is creating the most jobs, the second highest exporter, the country that has most improved its competitiveness and, above all, the country that is looking to the future with the greatest realistic optimism. That is how we Spanish people are.

Thank you very much.