​"The worst thing that could happen to Greece and its people is to exit the Euro", says Mariano Rajoy

Madrid

Mariano Rajoy placed great emphasis on the fact that "when you are a member of a club or an organisation, in this case the European Union, you have rights but you also have obligations because that is what makes the world go round".

As regards the announcement to call a referendum in Greece on the bailout agreement, the President of the Government maintained that "the worst thing that can happen to Greece and its people is to exit the Euro". He described this announcement as "news that none of us wanted to hear", because the goal was "for an understanding and an agreement to be reached some time ago".

In this regard, Mariano Rajoy recalled that "any exit from the Euro is bad for the Greeks, firstly, bad for Greece, secondly, but it is also bad for the rest of Europe".

For this reason, he stressed that he has given instructions to the Minister for Economic Affairs, Luis de Guindos, to "try, right to the very end, to continue negotiating to save the situation", at the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels.

Jihadi attacks

Mariano Rajoy also expressed his support for those countries that suffered terrorist attacks on Friday. In his opinion, it is necessary "to do battle until the very end" and hence announced that "Spain will call a meeting of the 5+5 Initiative, the five most important European countries in the Mediterranean and the five most important African countries of the Mediterranean" (Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania).

The President of the Government insisted that Spain "will be very supportive of Tunisia", and recalled that "at this time we are working with Spanish soldiers in Somalia, in Mali and also in Iraq together with other European countries".