Speech by President of the Government of Spain at the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum of the Körber-Stiftung Foundation

Moncloa Palace, Madrid

Thank you very much. Let me thank the Körber Stiftung for inviting me to this Berlin Foreign Policy Forum. I think it is an excellent opportunity to get into a debate about fundamental questions with people from different countries and different backgrounds, with experts in international relations and with young students eager to ask questions.

We are facing very hard times. And I would like to remind all the victims that COVID 19 is leaving around the world, our thoughts must be with them and their families. There are also thousands of people, in the whole world, but also in Europe, who are now struggling to the economic crises brought by the pandemic, people who lost their jobs, people who are expecting us to solve their problems. They must feel that the European Union is with them. And we must prove them that Europe is resilient and generous and has the tools to overcome the situation. That is what we have to achieve this time as well.

In fact, it is already being achieved, with the historic agreement we reached in July with the creation of Next Generation EU, un unprecedented amount of resources to be distributed among member states. Such a decision was unthinkable a few months earlier. We have to congratulate ourselves for the statesmanship vision of all European leaders, including Chancellor Merkel, for having lived up to what history demanded of us.

Nevertheless this is just a first step. Europe needs to keep moving forward, in order to emerge after the pandemic not the same as it was before, but transformed and improved. The Europe to come must be green, digitalized, cohesive and feminist.

This horrible year 2020, which will be recalled in history for the many lives lost and for the tragic economic crisis caused by the pandemic, must also be a turning point in creating the Europe of the future.

In this sense, the European project is more necessary than ever, to avoid any hint of parallelism between this crisis of 2020 and the great crisis of the late 1920s, which led to the Second World War.

We need to emerge stronger so that we can provide our children a better life in a more sustainable world. That is why the recovery fund is called Next Generation EU, because it is about sustainable development and because it is about living.

In this global crisis, Europe has to become an increasingly attractive project and strengthen its role; and that can only be done in one way: leading global processes, such as multilateralism or the 2030 Agenda.

When it comes to the sustainable development goals we must live by example. The more we delve into the values in which we believe, the higher returns we will obtain. That doesn't mean being naive. In our relations with, for example, the United States, Europe doesn´t need to go back to its comfort zone, but we have to work on a relationship which is key, as an equal partner, as a reliable one, also trying to reinforce the compliance with the principles that we share, and trying to draw the US more and more in our direction in this sense.

With China, for example, it is more difficult, because China is today a systemic country, and for us it is indeed a systemic adversary, our systems are diametrically opposed in many points; and here I would like to underline the issue of human rights. However, at the same time, our relationship with China must be strategic, because China, for us, is a systemic adversary, but not a strategic one. We can be partners in many issues that can have a positive impact on our societies.

Europe must be brave and smart. We have to avoid both sides of the pendulum in our thinking: neither we live in an ideal situation nor we already missed the train of modernization compared with the United States and China. Neither idea is entirely true. We do not have to go from excessive complacency to depression. We can still do a lot, not just for ourselves, but for the whole world; but one thing is true, the more united we are, the more we can because we certainly are stronger together.

That is why, in order to keep the European project alive and strengthen its role in the world, I imagine a European Union which is:

- More digital, greener.

- With greater territorial and social cohesion

- That keeps moving relentlessly towards real gender equality

- That reinforces its strategic autonomy, within an open system

- That constantly supports multilateralism and attracts others to it

- That moves towards greater economic and monetary integration

- That faces the migratory phenomenon with solidarity and humanity, in addition to responsibility, not taking steps backwards with internal borders, which we believed were already overcome

- That keeps its doors open towards enlargement, for those States that meet the requirements

- And that takes special care of its foreign policy, in particular with its neighbours, in the East and in the South, but also with the rest of the world, especially Africa, Asia and Latin America which is a crucial region for Spain.

Only by fulfilling these premises, will the European Union emerge from this crisis stronger than before.

We have already started the process, because we have managed to put in motion very powerful and formerly non-existent mechanisms, such as Next Generation EU, but we have to continue along this line. Our citizens need it and we must provide it.

Many thanks for this invitation and I am eager to start this conversation with you and with the rest of the colleagues. Many thanks for your invitation.

(Transcript edited by the State Secretariat for Communication)

Non official translation