Ana Pastor and Antonio Simões before the beginning of the act./ Photo: NE
Eduardo González. 20/05/2017
The Brazilian ambassador to Spain, Antonio Simões, said yesterday that his country has decided to “eliminate practices from the past” to have “a much better and more transparent society for business” and assured, in this sense, that the decision of the Supreme Court of authorizing a judicial investigation of President Michel Temer shows that “no one is above the law”.
“President Temer has said that he has nothing to hide and has demanded that it be investigated thoroughly and quickly”, something “normal in a society in which institutions work”, said Antonio Simões in the course of an information breakfast organized by New Economy Forum at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid.
“There is a Prosecutor who investigates, judging judges, an Executive who acts and reforms and a Legislative that works and makes laws. Everything works, and that’s what’s important”, added the ambassador during the ceremony, which was presented by the President of the Congress of Deputies, Ana Pastor.
The investigation into Temer – for its alleged involvement in a plot of bribes to entrepreneurs – has led to the collapse of the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, a circumstance that, according to Simões, should not affect foreign investments, and the Spanish in particular, in his country.
“The stock market always goes up and down, last week it went up in seven sessions and now it has fallen, but it is always like that”, said the ambassador. “What we have to look at is the economic fundamentals, the direction in which it is going” and the fundamental “is that there is a solid economy and there is legal security for the companies”, he added.
Simões says that the police crisis and the stock market crash should not affect Spanish investments
According to Simões, the economic measures of the Government of Temer are based on “the model of Spain, who knew how to make the necessary reforms to get ahead”, and focus on four points: responsibility in spending, labor legislation, pensions and the new program of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructures, known as Crecer.
This program “is an opportunity for Spanish companies” that “are taking advantage of the moment”, continued, with explicit mention to Iberdrola and Abertis. “We have changed the rules for the concessions in order to be more attractive for foreign investments”, he said.
In another area of bilateral relations, Simões pointed out that in Brazil there are currently 130,000 Spaniards, to whom we must add other “15 million descendants of Spaniards.”
During the ceremony, the director of the Cervantes Institute, Juan Manuel Bonet, spoke about the fact that Brazil is “the country of the world with more centers” of this institution and assured that Spanish and Portuguese are “complementary languages” and, therefore, Cervantes “also program activities in the language of Camões”.
