​Press conference by President of the Government following meeting with H.M. the King

Palma de Mallorca

President of the Government.- A very good afternoon to you. Thank you very much for attending this press briefing. I apologise for holding it at a different time than originally scheduled. It is my fault, but not deliberately and I hope you will understand that. At any event, I greatly appreciate your presence here.

This meeting, which is traditionally held here, and which the President of the Government attends, in the same way as they are traditionally held during the course of the winter, serves to explain to H.M. the King the most important issues of interest to the Spanish people as a whole, and has today been followed by a lunch. I will try and summarise the four or five most important points I have spoken about with His Majesty.

Firstly, we briefly discussed economic matters. From the point of view of the Spanish economy, the most important figures announced since the last meeting we held were the employment figures published last week. Both the unemployment and social security figures are encouraging and I just want to add one comment on this issue: we are heading down the right path and I believe that we must continue to maintain this same economic policy.

We said during the election debates in 2015 and then in 2016 that, if we did things right, we would be able to create some half a million jobs a year in Spain and, to date, we are indeed creating these half a million jobs a year, but the goal is to push on and achieve 20 million Spaniards in work by the year 2020, although I believe that if we do things well we may even be able to achieve this by the year 2019. This would be a record figure. That is what we are working towards - more jobs - since this is the main concern of the Spanish people and this will be very positive for all those people who find a job, but it will also increase revenue and allow us to assign more resources to healthcare, education, pensions and public services in general.

The second part of our discussion on economic matters focused on tourism. The tourism figures we are seeing this year are truly encouraging. Tourism figures were good in 2015, and even better last year, in 2016; but this year they are something special. Today we have seen the contribution from the tourism sector, up 9%, to our current account balance. That is very positive for the Spanish economy.

At present, tourism employs more than 13% of all people in work in Spain; more than 2.5 million Spaniards work in the tourism sector. The sector accounts for more than 11% of our GDP and we must look after it, nurture it and support it. A total of 2.5 million Spaniards, of which 452,000 people who work in the tourism sector are in Catalonia, almost 20% of the total. Hence, I would like to call for responsibility and common sense here today, because this is one of the most buoyant sectors in the Spanish economy at present and as such we must look after it and support it.

Thirdly, we also spoke about the labour conflict taking place at El Prat Airport and I informed H.M. the King about this - an issue that is also related to tourism. I would call for common sense and responsibility from the company and also from the workers. You cannot generate a situation such as the one taking place in the middle of the month of August and nobody should attempt - and for this reason I call for common sense and responsibility -to use this issue against anyone else on purely political grounds. AENA manages all the airports throughout Spain; at present we have a specific problem at one airport, which could have happened at two or three others, and hence, I call for common sense and I call for everyone to focus on what must constitute our main aim, which is to return normality to El Prat Airport as soon as possible.

Fourthly, I informed His Majesty on the government's position in relation to the issue of Catalonia. As you are aware, following the government's appeal, the Constitutional Court ruled last Monday that the amendments made to the Regulation of the Regional Parliament of Catalonia have been suspended after accepting the appeal lodged by the government. The aim was to approve a law to hold an illegal referendum in just 24 hours, a law to approve the infamous breakaway laws. This is something highly anti-democratic, which curtails the rights of the rest of the MPs that do not belong to the parliamentary majority, and hence the government is very satisfied and very pleased that the Constitutional Court has accepted the suspension of this law.

I would also like to add that, as you know, MPs from different parliamentary groups (Junts pel Sí and CUP) have presented a draft referendum bill that the Board must now evaluate. In the event that it decides in favour of this bill, despite being clearly unconstitutional, illogical and void of any common sense, the government will appeal against it because what it seeks to do is something absolutely illegal and absolutely contrary to the laws and regulations enacted by the Spanish people as a whole. This is a new kick in the teeth to the democratic system under a dynamic that some people have formed, and it is perverse and goes against the very spirit of the European Union, one of the basic principles of which is the rule of law and respect for the law. And, of course, it will be very difficult to demand that any citizen follows the law when the governors of an autonomous region of Spain are doing exactly the opposite, which is breaking the law, and moreover, boasting that they are going to break the law because they feel like it.

I reiterate what I have said on many occasions: no referendum will be held on 1 October. There will be no referendum because Spain is a democracy, where the rule of law prevails, it is a country with its laws, and the law must be followed by everyone, first of all, by its governors and then, as is also clear, by the rest of the citizens.

I would also like to briefly comment on what is happening in Venezuela. The government's position on Venezuela is as follows: firstly, condemnation of the violence; secondly, to demand free and democratic elections, and thirdly, the release of all political prisoners - 620 political prisoners at this time - according to the Organization of American States. Hence, we condemn all forms of violence; we demand free elections and the release of all political prisoners.

I would like to state that the Government of Spain defends exactly the same for Venezuela as it does for Spain, namely liberty, democracy, respect for individuals and respect for their rights. And I would also like to add that the government does not recognise the Constituent Assembly set up by the Government of Venezuela - it does not recognise it - and hence, it does not recognise any decisions that may be adopted by this assembly, as they are illegal, anti-democratic and against the will of the people of Venezuela.

Lastly, I also want to say that I informed H.M. the King about the meeting that we will hold on 28 August in France between the German Chancellor, the French President, the Italian Prime Minister and myself, at which we will address several issues that are important for Europe. The first of these is the future of Europe, regarding which Spain will advocate continuing to extend the European project.

Firstly, we are going to work towards creating a European Defence system and we are going to continue working on the Economic and Monetary Union. Spain will commit to a European Finance Minister, Spain will commit to a European Budget that will help converge the standard of living and wealth of all the European countries, and Spain will commit to the creation of Eurobonds - a European Treasury that issues European bonds which will hopefully have sufficient credibility and support the markets in order for us all to be able to receive cheaper financing.

We will talk about this issue there; we will also talk about the situation of illegal emigration, about those people who unfortunately continue to lose their lives close to many borders of the European Union, particularly in the Mediterranean at this time, in the Central Mediterranean; and we are going to continue talking about the need to continue cooperating in the fight against terrorism, the main priority for the people of Europe at this time.

By way of summary, these are the issues I raised with H.M. the King; I will now take any questions you may have.

Q.- I am Lucía Yeste, from Spanish National Radio. I wanted you to clarify one of the issues you say that have spoken about with the Head of State and which is news today throughout Spain, which is the crisis at El Prat Airport. A certain councillor from the Regional Government of Catalonia and a certain Spokesperson from the City Council of Barcelona have accused the government - the Ministry of Public Works - of not doing everything possible to avoid this crisis, these enormous queues and all this trouble that many people are suffering from who want to start their holidays. How does the government receive this criticism?

President of the Government.- Quite frankly, I receive it prudently and without intending to cause any further controversy. Everyone knows what is happening; this is a discussion between a private company and a group of workers, some of whom, by the way, have publicly stated that it is important to see long queues so that people suffer and the media witness this, to thus show, undoubtedly, their tremendous patriotism.

But, of course, trying to make politics out of this makes no sense. I am not going to demand that the Regional Government of Catalonia, because this makes no sense, exercises its powers, because these powers belong to them. What I do want to say is that AENA is the same company throughout Spain and Spanish airports are working normally at this time and there is only a one-off problem at one of them. So, if AENA is at fault because one of them is not working well, and yet the others all work well, then we are being quite unfair in blaming AENA.

Hence, what I would call for is responsibility from everyone rather than petty-mindedness, and to try to resolve the problems, which is what people are calling for, rather than making politics out of the situation. I am clearly not going to get involved in this controversy, because, in all honesty, it makes no sense. Now what I would like to see, because I clearly do this, is for everyone to shoulder their own responsibilities. Sometimes, this is not gratifying, but in order to govern, you must be there in the good times and the bad times, and any difficulties must be resolved because that is what we are there for.

Q.- Pilar Santos, from "El Periódico de Cataluña". I wanted to ask you about this issue, about Catalonia. You mentioned that you have spoken about this with the Head of State. A certain political leader has said that he had seen the Head of State concerned about this issue. I wanted to know whether you, broadly speaking, can tell us the state of mind of Felipe VI regarding this challenge.

I also wanted to ask you about a specific issue. The PSOE [Spanish Socialist Workers' Party] will ask for a study committee to be set up in the Lower House of Parliament in September to tackle the regional reform of Spain and lay the foundations for a future reform of the Constitution. The PSOE wants to see both the PDeCAT [Catalan European Democratic Party] and the PP [People's Party] represented on this committee. Do you believe that the PP should be represented on this committee? Will you encourage it to do so?

President of the Government.- I have spoken about this issue with the King, but I cannot speak on behalf of the King, and I am absolutely sure that you will appreciate that I cannot do so.

As regards your other question, I don't know whether the PSOE will do this in the end. I have indeed read that one media outlet is saying that it will do this. In all honesty, I am committed to the PSOE, the People's Party and Ciudadanos standing as one. That seems reasonable to me. I believe that we all think the same on the crux of the matter; we are all in favour of the unity of Spain, of national sovereignty, and we are all in favour of the principle of equality of all the people of Spain.

Hence, I believe that we should all stand as one on this matter. It is clear that a constitutional reform cannot be undertaken without the support of the People's Party, because the People's Party has a great many MPs and a majority in the Upper House; but neither can this be done without the support of the PSOE and of Ciudadanos, and of some other political forces. So, I am in favour of talking about this matter. But before 1 October, and the General Secretary of the PSOE is aware of my position on this matter, I am not in favour of doing anything at all.

The issue at hand now is that on 1 October, Spain must send out a message to the world stating that this is a serious country where the law is upheld and whose governors are subject to following the law. And after 1 October, we will then be on a different stage, but whatever this stage may be after 1 October, I consider it a priority and essential for an agreement to be reached between several political forces, and clearly between the most important ones represented in the Lower House of Parliament, I believe that, if not, we would all be making a grave error, and I clearly do not want to be a party to grave error on an issue of these characteristics. By standing in agreement on the key issue, we are not then going to argue about 3% of the problems, because the other 97% is clearly more important.

Q.- Alba González, from La Sexta. I don't if you want to give you assessment of the latest findings of the CIS. How do you assess this loss of votes for the People's Party?

President of the Government.- Surveys, as everyone knows, are just surveys. We are not facing elections at this time. Sometimes you have more support and at other times less support. I remember that a little less than a year before the 2015 elections, we were supposedly the fourth largest political force in Spain. Allow me at this time to govern, which is my obligation, and then, when the time comes for politics, and remember that the others have more time for politics than I do, then we will do this; but I can assure you that we, in the People's Party, are very excited and have a great interest in working. Our priority is to govern, but we will work to ensure that things work out well and to once again win the next elections, and I feel in good shape to do that, despite this morning's incident.

Q.- Nekane Domblás, from the local newspaper "Ultima Hora", here in the Balearic Islands. In relation to what you said about tourism, you state that tourism must be supported, and yet here there have been protest actions in regard to what is considered to be mass tourism, as there have been actions in Barcelona. My question is the following: "How do you assess these actions? Do you fear they will be repeated and that these actions are copied on certain points of the coast where there is a great deal of tourism? What do you mean when you say that tourism must be supported, because there are people here who consider that we should stop promoting tourism? I don't know whether you believe that we should do the opposite; that is, if you propose to carry out a campaign along the lines of "Welcome tourist. Spain is waiting for you".

That is my first question and then, since we are here in the Balearic Islands, it is almost a tradition to ask you about the financing system. Each year that you come here I have asked you about the financing system and each year you have been here you have said to me that it would be approved that year. I would like to know whether you truly believe that, in light of the plan presented by the experts, we are in a position for the regions to reach an agreement so that, once and for all, we can have a new system of financing.

President of the Government.- In relation to your first question, I don't know whether we should receive tourists with a sign saying "Welcome Mr Tourist", but what I believe we shouldn't do to the tourist who fortunately comes here and spends a lot of money and allows a lot of Spaniards to work, is to treat him badly. That seems daft to me.

So, what do I feel about some of the things that some left-wing extremist groups are doing? I am radically against them. I am in favour of tourism. We are the third ranked tourism country in the world, more than 2.5 million people work in this sector and, if people come here, it is because they like Spain. But I sometimes have to think that there are people who are annoyed by the arrival of other people here, who come here to enjoy our country. Well, just look, I am both for and against. I am in favour of tourism, of the jobs this sector created, I am in favour of my country and I am against the radical extremists who I believe have risen up too much, although not for long, in this country.

The second issue - the model of regional financing. I hope to be here next year, that the two of us will be here, because this will mean that the two of us continue in our respective posts, and I hope to be able to say to you that we have approved the model of regional financing.

In the last term of office, as everyone knows, the Spanish economy was very clearly on the rise. We couldn't create a new model of regional financing, because what we had to do was overcome the situation of imminent bankruptcy we were facing. Now, at the latest meeting of presidents of regional governments - which was held, as you know, in the Upper House in the month of January - we agreed on a series of things. Some of them have already been approved, such as the Pact on Gender-Based Violence, and we have agreed to commission a report on regional financing. The report has now been handed over, that is, the experts have done their job, and it now falls to the politicians to do theirs.

We have set up a working group under the Fiscal and Financing Policy Council, on which those regions that wished to are represented, and the work of the government is to foster an understanding. Now, what we cannot do is design a model of regional financing with four votes against five. In other words, we are trying to work to reach a situation of unanimity which, moreover, is what common sense dictates. You are aware that one situation is more beneficial for some regions and another for others, and that has nothing to do with the political hue of the autonomous region.

So, the government will try to foster an understanding and, as always happens in life, whenever you have a negotiation, 80% of the result of this negotiation is the intention to reach an agreement. If everyone sits down with the intention of reaching an understanding, then one is reached; if everyone sits down with the intention to sling mud at each other, then this understanding will be very difficult to reach. But the government will clearly try and ensure this and we hope that common sense, refinement and the ability to make politics of all concerned will thus guarantee that an understanding is reached for this model.

Then, something aside from the model of regional financing is the system in the Balearic Islands. We are already discussing this. There have been talks in the ministerial department, the Regional Councillor for Finance of the Balearic Islands has attended, as has the Government Representative in the Balearic Islands, and Mr Biel Company has also attended, and we would like to reach a representative agreement for all of the political forces in the Balearic Islands and for all of the citizens of the Balearic Islands in order to design a better economic and tax regime than the one that exists at this time. I am hopeful that this will happen and I will work to that end.

Q.- Margalida Solivellas, from TV3. There have also been problems at the airport here and we have been calling for the airport here to be co-managed for many years now. In these negotiations will you authorise this co-management?

Secondly, on 15 September, you will go to Catalonia, and this coincides with the start of the referendum campaign. Will you go for more days and do you have more events scheduled?

President of the Government.- As regards the first issue, we listen to everyone, but the system will be exactly the same at all the airports throughout Spain, in others words, it will be precisely the same system at all of them. That is the system that has been working for 40 years and none of the political parties that have been in power have sought fit to change it. Things don't work better because there are more people involved. Everyone has their own powers and it is important for everyone to exercise these. I believe that the Spanish tourism sector is working very well. The airports have their difficulties and their problems, as is the case in Catalonia; but I believe that they are helping, together with many other things, for us to enjoy some wonderful tourist seasons.

Hence, the main goal for me is to see tourism, which creates jobs and increases resources, and not jurisdictional problems that are perfectly defined in the Constitution.

As regards Catalonia, I will go there on 15 September, and indeed there is a People's Party Summer School on the 15th. On the 16th, I will go to Santiago de Compostela, because the Gold Medal for Merit at Work has been granted to Gerardo Fernández Albor, the former President of the Regional Government of Galicia, who is 100 years old, and is someone with a great career behind him.

The truth is that I have been to Catalonia on quite a few occasions this year. I have many trips abroad, I visit many places, and I can assure you that this is the most important problem I am facing at this time. This is important to me because I believe in the unity of Spain, because I believe it is my obligation to defend millions of Catalans that think the same or similarly to how I feel, because I believe in the law, because I believe that I am battling for a just cause, because I believe that there are people who are taking the wrong path and because they have placed their trust in the hands of the most extremist and radical group of people that Spain has seen in dozens of years, which is the CUP. They have placed their trust in their hands.

These are the people which, it would seem, some people have allowed to set the course in Catalonia. Quite clearly, Mariano Rajoy is not going to allow this.

Thank you very much.

(Transcription edited by the State Secretariat of Communication)

Non official translation