Speech by President of the Government at presentation of award of New Economic Forum Prize to President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker

Madrid

Mr President of the New Economic Forum, Mr President of the European Commission, dear Jean Claude, friends,

It gives me great satisfaction to be able to hand over the New Economic Forum Prize to a friend who I admire and respect, Jean Claude Juncker. New Economic Forum has got it right again. Jean Claude Juncker, the current President of the Commission is a worthy winner, and not only because of his wonderful work heading up the European Commission which he took on almost a year ago; this is also recognition of an extraordinary political life; a life given over to public service, to the best of politics; a life given over to his country, Luxembourg, and to an unrivalled project as is European integration.

I will not list the long and intense European curriculum of Jean Claude Juncker as a minister in the Government of Luxembourg, or as the Prime Minister of his country for almost 18 years or as President of the Eurogroup. I prefer to talk today about the present and the future, and about the person of Jean Claude.

Jean Claude Juncker, dear friends, is a politician in the true sense of the word, committed to the principles of a Christian Democrat and tireless in his work; he is, above all, a committed humanist and a pro-European through-and-through.

These traits of his personality are clearly reflected in the 10 priorities on his agenda relating to the issues of employment, growth, equality and democratic change that he presented in his investiture speech before the European Parliament in July 2014. Driving job creation, growth and investment, a commitment to Energy Union, extending the internal market and the Economic and Monetary Union, and the definition of a genuinely European migratory policy all feature highly among these priorities.

As you are all well aware, on taking on his functions as President of the Commission, Jean Claude Juncker was faced with a complicated social and economic panorama. He was undeterred by this; on the contrary, he decided to provide an audacious response to the challenges he faced.

Obviously the majority of the priorities mentioned revolve around the economy, which President Juncker views as a tool at the service of people and not the other way round. This understanding of economic affairs has given rise to the measures that he has firmly pushed through from his position of responsibility. This includes the Investment Plan for Europe, known as the 'Juncker Investment Plan'; a plan which, as you know, seeks to reactivate investment in the European Union, driving investment in strategic sectors such as energy and telecommunications.

That said, the finally beneficiary of this economic initiative is the European citizen, who will see his day-to-day life improved, his chances of finding a job and, in short, his future thanks to the reactivation of economic activity.

Something similar can be said of the steps taken towards Energy Union backed by Juncker's Commission. These steps seek, at first glance, economic goals: to ensure the international competitiveness of the EU in a radically globalised environment, fostering energy at more affordable prices, more sustainable energy sources and greater security of energy supply. And from all this, similarly to the Juncker Investment Plan, the final beneficiary will be the European citizen. In this regard, I wish to publically thank Jean Claude Juncker once again for his support for the Action Plan for Interconnections between Spain, France and Portugal, contained in the Madrid Declaration of 4 March this year, which we signed together with the President of the French Republic and the Portuguese Prime Minister.

The same is true of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the United States of America that Jean Claude Juncker is tirelessly promoting. It is true that the treaty will enable us to increase economic flows between the two richest areas of the world; but the benefits from this agreement are ultimately aimed at people. It has been forecast that the treaty will increase the disposable income of each household by 550 euros per annum without endangering the progress made in Europe on social, healthcare and cultural issues.

Nor can I fail to mention the effective start-up of the Youth Guarantee Fund coordinated by President Juncker. Thanks to this, young people are being more effectively helped to find a job.

Ladies and gentlemen,

In addition to this vision committed to citizens of the economy, we should also highlight another clear example of the humanism of Jean Claude Juncker: the action which, under his mandate, is being developed by the European Commission to provide a response to the migratory drama, particularly in the Mediterranean.

The proposals to relocate or resettle 40,000 people, to be followed by another 120,000 people, potential beneficiaries of international protection, come from Juncker's Commission. Spain, aware of the importance of tackling the root causes, which is what we must tackle, that force hundreds of thousands of people to leave their own countries, has offered its unconditional experience on the matter of migratory flows, as well as its intention to implement the measures agreed in Europe.

In light of the foregoing, I consider that what makes Jean Claude Juncker a true humanist is his ability to find a fair balance between the need to adopt technical measures that offer results to very complex challenges and his inescapable respect for the dignity of people. To put it another way, his ability to humanise responses to all forms of crisis.

We have also tried to do this in Spain. The measures we have adopted are measures that have an economic goal: to improve competitiveness and balance the public accounts, but in the end, these measures have final beneficiaries which are our citizens. When you need to make adjustments, because the circumstances so require, you must always defend those who are in the most difficult situations: in Spain, pensioners, who have always been defended by the government in the situation we have gone through, and those people who cannot find a job.

At the end of the day, the results are for the benefit of our people and this year unemployment in our country will fall by 650,000, an all-time record in Spain on this issue, which should spur us all on to continue striving, because there are still many people in a difficult situation.

Friends,

I said at the beginning that Jean Claude Juncker is a pro-European through-and-through. And indeed he is. President Juncker immediately realised that the economic crisis had an underlying feature and, moreover, he stressed this: the growing detachment of citizens towards the European Union.

With this frame of mind, Jean-Claude Juncker has always made it very clear that the European Union is one of the greatest instruments, if not the greatest, for political, social and economic progress that there has ever been in the history of Europe. And faced with this conviction, he could not accept that the people of Europe stopped believing in this. That is why, as he pointed out in the aforesaid agenda, it is necessary to re-establish the trust of European citizens and strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the EU.

President Juncker has not based the recovery of the interest of European citizens exclusively on the European Union pushing through effective economic measures. He knows that reforms are necessary to strengthen the democracy and legitimacy of the EU. This leads us, as is only right, to the Five Presidents' Report to strengthen Economic and Monetary Union, based on one of the 10 priorities on the agenda. This report, together with other measures designed to strengthen the economic and financial fabric of the EU, such as the introduction of a European system to guarantee deposits, a Eurozone Treasury or greater coordination of economic policies, proposes actions to increase the legitimacy of the EU, enhance citizen participation and strengthen institutional democracy.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Spain, traditionally committed to European integration, could only take part in this initiative from the full conviction that the best resource we have in Europe to tackle global challenges is to continue taking steps to forge a closer union, as a mainstay of the strength of the common project and the fundamental principles on which it is based. For that reason, this government has sought to contribute by offering proposals to ensure the smooth operation of the Economic and Monetary Union and enhancing the democratic legitimacy of the union, particularly in areas such as the coordination of economic policies, job mobility and Fiscal Union.

Friends,

Allow me to conclude this tribute with a touch of recent history. When Jean Claude Juncker was nominated at the congress in Dublin as the European People's Party candidate to the Presidency of the European Commission, those of us participating there obviously took into account his extensive experience in government and his commitment to Europe.

What I am convinced truly swayed the balance in his favour, and clearly the support from the People's Party, was something more important: Jean Claude Juncker is a man of principles and not of circumstances; he is a firm advocate of unity in diversity; he is convinced of the cohesion and solidarity in Europe; he is, to use the well-known phrase of Antonio Machado, "good, in the best sense of the word".

My sincere congratulations, President Juncker, on the New Economic Prize that I now hand over to you.

Thank you very much.