Speeches by President of the Government at press conference following four-party Summit (France, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy and Spain) with Niger, Chad and Libya

Paris

President of the Government.- A very good afternoon to you all.

I would like to say four things to you. Firstly, I want to once again thank President Macron for the solidarity that he and the people of France have shown with the city of Barcelona and with all of Spain following the very serious attacks that took place a short time ago.

I also want to thank all those people here today. I had the chance to speak with some of them on the same day or the day after the attacks, but today I have received the solidarity and support of all those I was unable to speak with at that time.

And I also want to express my gratitude, through all of you, to so many associations, groups of people and citizens of different countries and places around the world that have shown their solidarity with the Spanish people.

I believe that what we saw recently in Barcelona must help us reaffirm the idea that we are facing a global phenomenon and that we must all join together, all the countries in the world, to wage this battle. A total of 16 people died and more than 100 were injured; many people are still in the different hospitals. 20% of the victims were Spanish, but people from a total of 38 different nationalities from around the world were either killed or injured.

So thank you very much to everyone.

Secondly, I am very pleased that this meeting has been held. I am very pleased, because I was handed a sociological study not long ago; one which I suppose is arguable, as are many sociological studies that all of us present have to deal with from time to time. But this study said that the greatest concern expressed by the people of Europe was terrorism and the second greatest concern of the people of Europe was the problem we have been talking about at this time, and then, some considerable way behind, was economic growth, job creation and other issues that are also of concern to the people.

Hence, the fact that today we have been talking about economic immigration and that we will then talk about terrorism gives me great satisfaction, because this is a demonstration that we have chosen the agenda very well and we are addressing issues that concern our citizens.

The third comment I wanted to make was in relation to the issues about which those who have spoken before me have mentioned. I will only speak very briefly about this issue in order not to repeat what all of you have already heard.

I only want to say that the issue of illegal immigration is a very important one which has its consequences, none of them good, for everyone, both in the countries of origin and transit and the destination countries. This prevents development, as you have just heard stated here, because it is precisely young people who should pull their weight in their own country, but who leave, because they can. Meanwhile, this both enlarges and strengthens the gangs that comprise the organised crime groups that traffic people, and which, moreover, are in permanent contact with the terrorist groups. This means that a great many people - Ms Merkel reminded us of some truly dramatic figures in her speech - lose their lives and, in the end, this does not lead to any positive effects for anyone; quite the opposite. That is why I believe it is important that we have addressed this issue here today.

As Prime Minister Gentiloni said in his speech, this is a very difficult issue that cannot be resolved by waving a magic wand and it will take a long time to find a definitive solution, but it is also clear that what we need to do is take steps in the right direction.

The goals are very clear: first, to avoid people losing their lives, as is unfortunately happening all too often; second, to wipe out the people trafficking gangs, that then support the terrorist groups; third, as we have heard here today, to foster development and it is undoubtedly clear that we, as Europeans, have a great deal of work to do in this regard, although we have already taken the first steps in the right direction; and fourth, to cooperate in controlling borders and, at the same time, control the coastlines, and increase our capabilities.

These are the decisions we have taken today. Some precedents exist in certain countries in Europe, which have proven to work well. What has been done recently - and the Italian Prime Minister mentioned this - has also worked well. And we must express our thanks to the Presidents of Niger, Chad and Libya, because they are fighting a battle which, I repeat, is very complex and very difficult, but which, if we are all capable of fighting this together, we will finally win.

As you have just heard mentioned, a task force will be set up to monitor the decisions taken and prior to the European Union-African Union Summit, which will take place in the Ivory Coast at the end of November, we will hold - I reckon that in late October or early November - another meeting in Madrid like the one we are holding at this time in Paris, in order to see what decisions have been taken and, above all, to see how these decisions have been implemented.

Lastly, in fourth place, I wanted to make some brief comments in relation to the issue I spoke about at the beginning: the fight against terrorism. That is another key issue at this time. I repeat, the issue of illegal immigration, with all the problems this creates for everyone, and the issue of terrorism are the two main concerns of European citizens.

I want to point out five ideas on the lines I believe we should work on, which is what I will outline in today's meeting:

- Firstly, close collaboration is essential between the State law enforcement agencies of all countries.

- Secondly, international cooperation. The collaboration we have enjoyed with our neighbours, fundamentally with France and Morocco, has been very useful in taking steps in the right direction in the fight against terrorism. We will shortly hold a meeting in Spain of the group that is known as the G-6: the home affairs ministers of the four European countries that are here today, plus Poland and the United Kingdom. And I am going to propose something I had mentioned to President Macron in the meeting we held here back in July: holding a meeting shortly of the intelligence and counter-terrorism chiefs of the European countries that are in a similar situation to fight this battle together.

- Thirdly, the fight against radicalisation is very important. We have given over a great deal of time to radicalisation over the Internet, and we have good reason for doing so, and this battle must be fought hard; but, for example, in the case of Barcelona, following which 10 terrorists were arrested or gunned down, the Internet played virtually no role. What this means is that while we must fight radicalisation over the Internet, we must continue fighting the battle against radicalisation by looking at how things have traditionally been done over the course of recent years.

- Fourthly, another key goal is fighting the funding of terrorism.

- And lastly, acknowledging the fundamental role of the victims of terrorism. We have proposed a European Charter of Victims' Rights to the European Union. We are going to try and convince the rest of our partners to support this. I believe that the drafting of an International Charter on Victims of Terrorism sends out a strong message regarding the principles of memory, dignity and justice. Unfortunately, we have some degree of experience in this matter in Spain - I say "unfortunately" because we have been hit very hard over many years - and the vision that the institutions of the Spanish State has, together with that of civil society and, in particular, the victims of terrorism, we believe could be very useful and effective to this end.

Q.- You have repeated on several occasions this afternoon that there is no magic wand to resolve this problem, but there are several ingredients. I would like to talk about the Final Declaration, which we are yet to receive. Can you confirm to us that the immigration selection centres will indeed be set up, the infamous "hotspots"? In that case, how will this be tackled? What is the planned schedule? Is this a European idea to address the problem in the long term? Is the idea proposed by Ms Merkel to revise the Dublin system something that is shared? Have you spoken about a solution in the short, medium and long term, because in the short term, the public is very concerned? And we then have elections that are going to take place in some of the countries represented at the table today. Hence, what immediate measures are you going to adopt?

President of the Government.- I would like to make two brief comments. Firstly, when we talk about illegal immigration and immigration on economic grounds, we are talking about a problem of development, but this is not the first time that this has occurred in the history of humanity. I am Spanish, Paolo is Italian and immigration to Latin America, for example, in successive phases over the course of recent history, and even earlier on, is a fact that everyone here is well aware of.

Hence, the main objective, as has been said here, and this is true, is to increase the levels of development so that people do not have to leave their own country. Now, it is true that this is not easy and is not done overnight; the question is to take progressive steps in the right direction. There are now many European countries doing things in Africa. Spain is obviously there, and is helping train security forces, and it is actively participating in the issue of development aid and in the fight against terrorism there, as we also are in other locations, alongside other European countries.

But I believe that there are now three substantial differences compared with the situation in the past. The first is that for the first time the European Union is now going to take part seriously and tackle this problem in depth. This is very important because if, as I said earlier, this is clearly the second -most concerning problem for European citizens, it is now reasonable that the European Union also concerns itself with this issue.

My second comment is that a task force will now be set up to monitor all the decisions we take. This is very important because it also places an obligation on all of us.

And thirdly, we are going to hold a meeting in Madrid, and we will continue holding regular meetings in the future, with the aim of seeing if we are being effective when it comes to decision-making.

But, as the Italian Prime Minister said earlier, some improvements have already been made: things have improved in the Central Mediterranean, and they have also improved, and greatly so, in the Western Mediterranean when compared with the situation we went through some years ago. Let's wait and see what happens in the future, but history shows that, if you doing things right, if you commit to them, if decisions are taken and then monitored, you can achieve positive results, although the main fundamental goal must indeed be development. But, just listen, it is not easy to do that overnight, that takes time, but what you can do is take steps in the right direction.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat of Communication)

Non official translation