Press conference by President of the Government following close of 24th Ibero-American Summit

Veracruz (Mexico)

President of the Government.- Ladies and gentlemen, a very good afternoon to you all and thank you very much for your attendance.

As you are all aware, we have just concluded the 24th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government given over to education, culture and innovation; the first to be attended by H.M. King Felipe VI as Head of State, and also the first attended by Rebeca Grynspan as Secretary-General.

I would like to congratulate both the Secretary-General and the Mexican Pro Tempore Secretariat on their excellent working in programming and organising that has enabled this Veracruz Summit to be such a success. As you are aware, Colombia will organise the 25th Ibero-American Summit in 2016. I am sure that they will do a great job and from today onwards I offer them Spain's full cooperation in its preparation.

For me, it is very gratifying to have taken part in the renewal process of the Ibero-American Conference, which started in Cadiz two years ago and which culminates today in a swifter and more efficient system. I believe that this collective effort has strengthened our Ibero-America as a shared space with a future. I invite you to read the documents approved at this summit: the Veracruz Resolution and Declaration, the Action Programme and the various communiqués.

I would also like to mention a few specific changes. Henceforth, the summits will take place every other year and will alternate with the European Union-CELAC Summits [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States], the second edition of which will take place in Brussels in June 2015.

Bi-regional dialogue will thus present a more open format in which the CELAC, the European Union and the Ibero-American Conference will each have its own space working together for the benefit of the region. And in these relations with the European Union, Spain, together with Portugal, will be the leading advocates of Latin America.

We have similarly made progress on the thematic concentration. Our efforts will focus on language and culture, on scientific and technological education and innovation, and on social cohesion, through development cooperation and business cooperation.

We have made progress on streamlining institutions, redesigning the Regional Offices as instruments for decentralisation and improving the coordination of the General Secretariat with the various Ibero-American bodies, such as the Conference of the Ministers of Justice, the Ibero-American Social Security Organisation and the Organisation of American States for Education, Science and Culture.

In addition, various initiatives have been adopted focusing on young people and academic mobility. Thinking to the future we have identified that it is appropriate to agree a framework convention on talent mobility and build up an alliance for academic mobility at an Ibero-American level. The General Secretariat will monitor these initiatives.

We have also announced the launch of the Ibero-American Youth Card which will facilitate the access of Ibero-American youths to a series of benefits and common services such as education, culture and transport.

Allow me a brief aside on the issue of innovation, which we have tackled at the plenary session today, at which I opened the debate.

Spain assigns great importance to innovation, also within the Ibero-American Community of Nations in the 21st Century. Innovation is the basis for our development, improves people's lives, provides quality jobs and makes us competitive in a global context. At this level, Spanish companies and Multilatinas have a great deal to do and to say. We have overcome the most difficult part, which is having the talent available, we now need to harness this to innovation and Ibero-America. To overcome this challenge, it is key to have strong and independent institutions in order for innovation to prosper.

Similarly, we must focus on the principle of "the idea to the market", in other words, to make it easier for a good idea to become a reality, for the benefit of our companies and our citizens.

In another scheme of things, the Ibero-American summits are not only important for what is agreed there, but also for the dynamics they bring. Here, in Veracruz, various meetings have been held featuring civil society, such as the Communication Forum, the Ibero-American Business Meeting and a meeting of young people. I believe that these initiatives are incredibly useful and they should be further stepped up as they truly contribute added value to the Ibero-American Community.

On Sunday, I took part in a Business Meeting and yesterday, in addition to the inauguration of the Communication Forum with the President of Mexico, we held the traditional working lunch, attended by H.M. the King, at which we tackled issues of great interest within the framework of our strategic relations.

His Majesty and I held a working breakfast this morning with presidents of Central American countries, at which we tackled issues of mutual interest, such as relations between the European Union and Central America, the role of infrastructure as a driver of integration, and security in the region.

Furthermore, I have held bilateral meetings with the Presidents of Paraguay and Guatemala, and with the Head of Government of Andorra, at which we reviewed the different priorities in our bilateral relations and on the regional agenda.

In short, this has been a successful summit which marks a new stage with two priorities on the horizon: our citizens and greater efficiency. We sought to create the necessary conditions to bring these summits closer to society and to introduce criteria of greater efficiency and horizontality to adapt the Ibero-American Conference to the new reality being lived by our citizens. I believe that between us all we have managed this: we have gone from organising summits to creating a conference and we now want to become an Ibero-American Community with a great future ahead of us.

Q.- President of the Government, I wanted to ask you two questions: the first, about the summit. What is your opinion of the absentees at this Ibero-American Summit? Do you feel it is still healthy, despite these absentees that have become recurrent in recent editions?

On another note, you have also mentioned these last few days, in an interview you gave to a television channel here in Veracruz regarding the Leader of the Opposition in Spain, that you regretted the disloyalty shown by this Leader of the Opposition. I think that you are disappointed with him, with Pedro Sánchez, and that in the end you miss having Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as Leader of the Opposition.

President of the Government.- I believe that the Ibero-American Summit has been a success. I believe that the number of participants was higher than in 2005. At a level of Heads of State and Government, in other words, the people with the maximum responsibility for their countries, 15 out of 21 have attended, four countries have been represented by their respective number twos, two by their Minister for Foreign Affairs and another by their Ambassador. Hence, I believe that this has been a very successful summit.

A year of work has gone into this and we have approved many communiqués. As I explained to you, we have approved a major change in the way of doing things in the future. We have tackled important issues such as education, culture and innovation in depth. Hence, I can but reiterate what I said before, that I believe it has been a success.

As regards your other two questions, I have only said one thing in relation to Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, because I was asked about this, which is that I very highly value his role at the time of the abdication of H.M. King Juan Carlos and in the following days. I repeat that now, quite simply because it is true, and hence, I have no reason to say otherwise.

I have not mentioned Mr Sánchez here; hence I have not spoken about Mr Sánchez and I have nothing particular to say about him. I have nothing to add to the most recent remarks I made about him.

Q.- President of the Government, I wanted to ask you if you consider yourself to be an optimist. I say this because of what you said yesterday at the Business Forum, when you said that Spain was going to grow by more than 2%. I wanted to know how it will do this, because some international bodies say that these forecasts are not accurate, that it would be lower; I am talking about the IMF, the OECD and other bodies.

President of the Government.- I said that it may be possible for Spain to grow by more than 2% next year and I will say it again. And the next day, the OECD spoke; the very next day. I wasn't aware of what the OECD was going to say, but it also said that Spain could grow by more than 2%.

It is clear that the structural reforms we have implemented in our country and the efforts at fiscal consolidation the Spanish people have made as a whole have resulted in a significant change in the Spanish economy. And that is what I tried to explain yesterday.

I was here in Mexico, in Los Cabos, in 2012, and back then people were demanding that Spain asked for a line of credit from the International Monetary Fund. Back in 2012, everyone was demanding that I ask for a bailout; some even in editorials. Everyone was betting on Spain exiting the Euro and everyone was saying that there were going to be two classes of Euro. Just look, this has changed and I believe that all the people of Spain should be satisfied and pleased with that.

Look, just two years on from then and the fact that Spain is growing by more than Germany, France and Italy is something to be pleased with. There are still many things to do, but the fact that in the first six months of the year the number of people in work has increased by half a million, whilst accepting that there is still a lot to improve, it is still a positive figure. But I sometimes have the feeling that the same people who ignored the crisis would now seem to want to ignore the recovery as well and that, to be quite honest, doesn't seem fair to me, aside from not acknowledging the reality.

Hence, I believe that it is true that Spain could well grow by more than 2% next year. I believe that we have always been very cautious when setting our growth forecasts. Just look at when we presented the Budget for this year, 2014, we said that Spain would grow by 0.7%. In the Debate on the State of the Nation, in 2014, I said that I believed that we could grow by 1%. And when we sent our Stability Programme and National Reform Plan to Brussels at the end of April, we said no, Spain will grow by 1.2%. What will our growth be this year? It will probably be more than 0.7%, more than 1% and more than 1.2%. In other words, we have been very cautious and we have been very prudent, among other things, because shouting about something serves no purpose whatsoever, if not based on clear foundations.

But I do believe that we could grow by more than 2% and, of course, I am convinced that next year we will enjoy growth, we will be the leading country in the Eurozone, and clearly ahead of the other major countries in this area, in terms of growth and job creation.

Q.- President of the Government, in one of the questions, also of a domestic nature, that you commented on yesterday in the interview, you said that one of your objectives was to recover a level of common sense from one of the nationalist leaders. I would like to ask you about this common sense. How do you perceive the common sense of Artur Mas? Do you believe he is close to discovering it?

And, on another note, if you will allow me, President of the Government, lately the surveys being published show a considerable fall in figures for support of the PP. Does this concern you? Does the government plan to change strategy or do you have a new strategy for this final year before the elections?

President of the Government.- If I did have a change of strategy planned, you would appreciate that I couldn't tell you about it. You don't talk about strategies, you apply them.

No, common sense, no. Let me give you an example, the one that we are seeing here. What we are doing here is trying to draw our positions closer, trying to work together in a global and open world. Here we are observers of the Pacific Alliance, which includes Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Chile, and there are other observer States. The aim is to liberalise trade and the aim is to remove borders. Here there is a project known as MERCOSUR. We have been with the presidents of the Central American countries that also want to set up a union without borders and with free trade, with the aim of working to improve.

In other words, wherever we may go, all we are seeing around the world are processes of union and integration, and that equates to common sense and it is what the whole world is doing. No-one can survive alone in the world today. That is also the process the European Union is undergoing.

Hence, that is my position. It is valid anywhere in the world. And as such it is also valid for our country.

As regards the figures in surveys, they exist to be beaten, don't they?

Q.- President of the Government, continuing with the interview broadcast yesterday by Televisa, in regard to the first part of the interview, it seems to me that we are not used to seeing interviews and hence this gives us a lot of ammunition in these press conferences. When asked about your relationship with the Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, you said that you like democracy and that you are entitled to like it. I wanted to ask you if you feel that there is no democracy in Venezuela or that, at least, there is no democracy that meets the international standards that you would like to see.

If you will allow me, you announced that, if your party requests this, you are prepared to stand as a candidate in the next general elections. Aren't you concerned that the majority of the Spanish parties, the most important Spanish parties, have undergone a renewal process while the People's Party can be seen as the only party that does not have new additions with which to face the upcoming elections?

President of the Government.- Renewals, as you yourself are well aware, depend on how they are carried out, don't they? Sometimes what happens as a result of these renewals is a disaster of immense proportions.

I believe that neither of these questions makes much sense. Our party is organised as is seen fit and appropriate, as are other parties. I'm not going to get into that debate. I wholeheartedly respect the operation of all political parties.

In relation to the other issue, I am not going to get involved either. Venezuela is a country that was represented here at the Ibero-American Summit. On some issues we agree and on others we don't.

Q.- The public prosecution has asked for a prison term of 19 years for Iñaki Urdangarín and considers that the Infanta may be involved in unlawful gains from the businesses of her husband. I would like to know whether you consider that the Infanta should now renounce her dynastic rights.

President of the Government.- I am not going to get involved in decisions adopted by powers that are not those of the executive.

Q.- President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez said that he has evidence that there has been pressure exerted on the judiciary to remove Pablo Ruz and I would like to know what your response is to the Socialist leader.

On another note, I also wanted to ask you about whether, following the elections, in the event that Pablo Iglesias' party - 'Podemos' - forms a part of a regional government or, following the general elections, has Members of Parliament in the Lower House, will the People's Party be prepared to reach an agreement with them or will it dig its heels in, with the view, as your say, that they are populists.

President of the Government.- Yes, there has been pressures in relation to the first issue, I have seen evidence of it. In the press and in the PSOE [Socialist Workers' Party] there has indeed been pressure exerted. Hence, I believe that Mr Pedro Sánchez must be right.

As regards the second issue, we are not going to get involved in hypotheses because it makes no sense. There is still a long time to go before the general elections and what the People's Party wants to do is enjoy the trust of the majority of the Spanish people, above all, to consolidate economic recovery and to maintain an economic policy that has been shown to be useful to overcome the worst crisis that Spain has had - from an economic point of view - in several generations.

Q.- In relation to the Summit, I wanted to ask you about a recent statement by Mr Evo Morales accusing Spain of using the summit to serve Spain's best interests and, in particular, those of the Spanish monarchy. I wanted your assessment of this issue.

Secondly, as regards the public prosecutor's writ, I wanted to ask you if building up the "Botín doctrine" could be positive or negative for the image of the Spanish Crown and whether, in your opinion what is happening in the "Nóos Case" is related to the image of the Spanish Crown or not.

President of the Government.- Fortunately, the image of the Spanish Crown is excellent, and I welcome that, and the vast majority of the Spanish people do it as well, precisely because they talk about this wonderful image.

As regards the statement by the president of the country you mentioned, I just want to say that the Ibero-American Summit is a meeting, a conference, which those countries that so wish and see fit voluntarily form part of, and its only goal, particularly in these times, is to work to defend an improvement in the well-being and progress of our citizens, and of our countries in a world that is increasingly more open and complex.

Thank you very much.