Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, yesterday attributed the latest European agreements on the Fiscal Rules and the Migration and Asylum Pact to the “political leadership” of Spain, two “milestones” that, “if the Spanish Presidency had not achieved them, they would never have been achieved.”
“The results of the last days and hours, the agreement on the Fiscal Rules and the Pact on Migration and Asylum, show that the Spanish Presidency has lived up to what the partners expected of us,” declared Albares during an event the Alternativas Foundation on the balance of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU, moderated and presented by the director of this think tank, the former Secretary of State for the EU Diego López Garrido.
According to Albares, the Spanish Presidency set itself two major objectives from the beginning. Among them stands out “Russian aggression against Ukraine and maintaining unity and efforts to support Ukraine in all facets”, an objective that has been joined to “Spain’s commitment to enlargement” and that, after the meetings of the European Political Community and the informal European Council of Granada, culminated in the “historic decision” of the last European Council “to open accession negotiations.”
It is necessary to “help Ukraine as long as necessary and the best way to help Ukraine is the decision of the European Council to open negotiations”, because “what is being aired in Ukraine is not only the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine, but also European values,” said Albares. “We had to give a clear message to the Ukrainian people, but also to those outside, because only the EU can decide who its members are and no one can dictate from outside which countries cannot be members,” he added.
The other major objective of the Spanish semester, according to Albares, was to address the double digital and green transition. “The Spanish Presidency has taken a giant step in environmental transformation and the fight against climate change,” while contributing to the approval of “the first legislation on Artificial Intelligence,” he highlighted.
EU-CELAC
Another of the “milestones” of the European semester has been “the political decision of Spain, not only of the Spanish Presidency”, to ensure that “Latin America is at the center” of European politics. In this sense, he highlighted, the EU CELAC Summit, held in Brussels last June, “marks a before and after in the relationship between the two regions, not only because it has not been held for eight years.”
“This summit would not have been possible without the support of Spain” and the agreements adopted during the meeting – on critical raw materials, investment financing and connectivity between the two regions and institutionalization of relations – “make the relationship with Latin America have a clearly Spanish impulse,” he continued.
Fiscal rules and immigration pact
During the conversation, López Garrido highlighted that the Spanish Presidency is “ending with great power” after the approval, this week, of “two of its great challenges, the agreement on fiscal rules and the Migration and Asylum Pact.”
Regarding the first point, Albares highlighted the “difficulties” that had to be overcome to carry out the agreement for European economic governance, adopted this past Wednesday by the EU Ministers of Economy and Finance and which establishes the new rules for controlling the deficit. and debt.
“The positions of the 27 States are sometimes very different and the agreement was not easy and was always in doubt,” but “everyone is aware of Spain’s political leadership” on this issue and agrees that “if not won the Spanish Presidency, it would never be achieved,” said the minister. In this sense, she continued, the first vice president and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, showed “leadership” to achieve “something that was not so evident: the balance between orthodoxy and permissiveness in spending,” he continued.
“The pact has great value in itself,” because it is a “guarantee of progress and stability, a good agreement between maintaining the great rules that give economic stability in Europe, and which are in the treaties, and greater flexibility” in “exceptional moments”, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the minister highlighted.
Regarding the Legal Framework on Migration and Asylum – whose central political elements were also agreed on Wednesday by the Spanish Presidency and the European Parliament -, Albares assured that Spain contributed its ‘auctoritas’ as a first reception country that presents “the best figures” in this matter because it has “good partners in the fight against mafias that traffic people in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean.” “Spain was well positioned to find this agreement, a good agreement that balances solidarity and responsibility, the solidarity of the rest of the States with the States of first entry, because those who come do not come to a specific country, they come to Europe,” declared.
According to Albares, irregular migration from Africa is “a structural phenomenon, not a temporary one,” due to the differences in living standards between both neighboring continents, and “structural phenomena are not solved, they are managed,” and the agreement represents a useful instrument for this. Likewise, he warned of the need to “always safeguard the right of asylum in Europe,” because it is “a substantial part of the European identity” and it is necessary to help “people who need our protection.”
Financial Framework and European elections
On the other hand, José Manuel Albares was “convinced” that the 27 EU States will reach an agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework on February 1. “Not all countries have the same vision of European priorities,” but “in the end an agreement is always reached, and I hope this time will not be different.” “Spain has started the process strongly by putting a clear and concrete proposal on the table,” he assured.
Likewise, the minister warned that, in the European elections next June, the EU faces a “double danger”: the “increase of far-right forces openly contrary to the values of the EU and a classic right that has traditionally agreed with social democracy in the European Parliament and in the European institutions but that, at the national level, allows itself to be vampirized by the extreme right by accepting its postulates.” “I hope that Europeans will bet on clearly pro-European forces so that Europe continues to advance on the foundations that have allowed us to emerge from the crises,” he concluded.
