Speech by President of the Government at joint press conference during Summit of Southern European Countries

Rome (Italy)

Ladies and gentlemen, a very good evening to you all.

I would like to start my speech by thanking Prime Minister Gentiloni for his invitation. As you have all just heard, we are the southern European countries; we are united by tradition, history and culture, and we are also united by the fact that we have common interests and share common challenges. Hence, we are meeting here with the sole aim of providing added value to the European process and to try and reach a common position on the issues that matter to our citizens.

You are aware of the Declaration adopted, and hence I will not repeat that, but I would like to draw your attention, with the brevity required of a briefing of this nature, to six points that I feel are important.

In our opinion, the main aim for the coming years must continue to be economic growth and job creation. As you know, Europe went through a crisis - some countries were harder hit than others - which we are fortunately now coming out of. Specifically, in Spain, we have enjoyed four years of economic growth, the last three above 3%; we are creating jobs in Europe, and also in my country - 611,000 Spaniards found a job last year, in 2017. And hence, I believe that, with this goal in mind, we must persevere in the reformist policies that we have carried out over recent years.

The main goal must be to increase the competitiveness of the economy because other economies also intend to carry out reforms to become more competitive.

Today we have seen some very important figures published in Spain on tourism - a sector that has made a great effort to be more competitive despite already having a long tradition in Spain. 82 million foreign citizens visited Spain last year, 9% up on 2016, and revenue from this sector amounted to 87 billion euros, 12% up on the previous year. We have become the second ranked country in the world in terms of inbound tourists and the second ranked country in the world in terms of tourist spending.

The second main goal, after economic growth and job creation, must be to maintain and improve our social welfare system: pensions, healthcare, education and long-term care, etc. This is a European value, something which we sometimes don't value as highly as we should. This exists here in Europe, but to a much lesser degree in the rest of the countries in the world. Hence, this must be our second main goal; it is a European value and is closely linked into economic growth and job creation.

The third main goal, closely related to the first two, concerns what we must do in Europe. Europe is a decisive factor from an economic point of view of, so that citizens from all countries can find work and attend to their needs and improve their social well-being. As has already been mentioned here, it is fundamental, and we all agree on this goal, to extend the Economic and Monetary Union; we must complete the Banking Union as soon as possible; we also need to complete the internal market, particularly the energy market - you are aware that this is a very important factor of competitiveness - and also the single digital market, and give free trade the importance it has for household economies through persevering in ensuring that more free trade agreements are signed.

The fourth comment I want to make is related to the problem of immigration. This is one of the challenges, perhaps the most important one, facing the European Union in the future. Everyone who is here, all of the southern European countries, is affected by these migrations that take place on different continents. I just want to mention one idea: the European Union must help control external borders more because we are in a territory where we must not leave individual Member States to act alone, because these are very complex and extremely difficult issues to manage; second, the European Union must make an effort, which it has started to do, which must be applauded, to invest more resources in foreign policy. The goal must be to fight poverty on the African continent, improve its situation and fight the mafias.

The fifth comment I wanted to make is that we wish to see a more democratic Europe with greater citizen participation. I am in favour of the system of citizens' consultations we have just heard about and there must also be a procedure whereby there are forums and debates where economic and social stakeholders, citizens in general and experts can offer their opinion on how they see the future of the European Union.

The sixth comment I want to make is on the transnational lists. We are in favour - not all of us here - of making progress on the European idea that there are a certain number of European MPs that are elected from a list with a single constituency that is called Europe. I believe that this, together with other changes that have taken place in Europe over recent years will undoubtedly serve for progress to be made in the European Union.

My seventh and last comment is to say that citizens are entitled to live without being afraid. Not long ago, the members of the European Council held an informal meeting in Bratislava and we were handed some studies there that said that terrorism was one of the main, in fact the leading, concern of the citizens of Europe. That is set down in the Declaration. Terrorism must continue to be a top priority, we have all been hard hit and support for the victims of terrorism will also continue to be a top priority for my country as I am sure is the case for all of us present here.

Thank you very much.

Non official translation