​"Our fight is against barbarism and not any specific religion. It is a war between civilisation and barbarism", says Mariano Rajoy

Brussels

The President of the Government conveyed the pain of the Spanish people and Government to the family of Antoni Ciera Pérez and his wife Dolores Sánchez Ramí, and wished them courage to face the future. He also expressed to the President of Tunisia, as he did on Wednesday, "the total and utter support of our government and of the Spanish people following Wednesday's very serious attack" and declared that "we are at his disposition".

Mariano Rajoy reported that various members of the Spanish National Police are travelling to Tunisia to help in the decision-making and actions that will be taken in the coming hours, and that the families of the deceased are also travelling there.

"Jihadi terrorism remains one of the major problems of all our citizens for the last few years now. They are enemies of the Muslim and non-Muslim alike. It is very important to point out that the battle here is against barbarism and not against any religion. This is a war between civilisation and barbarism", he stated. According to Mariano Rajoy, "international cooperation is very important; prevention is very important as is the constant adaptation of legislation, both ours and of the rest of the countries in Europe, in order to be more effective in our response".

In this regard, he mentioned the agreement reached not long ago between the People's Party and the Socialist Party "because this undoubtedly tackles one of the greatest threats to life, liberty, the security of the Spanish people and indeed of all Europeans".

Energy, a key issue for Spain

According to Mariano Rajoy, out of the issues to be dealt with at the European Council starting on Thursday afternoon, energy is a key issue for our country. "It is a question of "being able to lower gas and electricity prices, firstly for the consumer, but also for the companies themselves; in other words, this is a very important element of the competitiveness of our companies, and hence, of the generation of well-being, wealth and job creation", he argued.

In his opinion, "steps must continue to be taken to achieve a single energy market", and it is important, he added, that the meeting held recently in Madrid between "the President of France, the Prime Minister of Portugal, the President of the European Commission and myself" can serve to reduce energy prices and that this is contained in the Council's conclusions.

Another issue that will be tackled at the Council is that of the economic forecasts for the future. In this respect, he said that there is an enormous difference between what we were being told in Spain in 2012 and what we are being told today. "We were then undoubtedly the weak link in Europe whereas today Spain is growing and creating jobs and I believe that 2015 will be a good year". Mariano Rajoy commented that there is still a lot to do, there are still after-effects of the crisis, unemployment is still very high and there are still people in difficulties, but the change between 2012 and now is considerable and "now it is a question of persevering and maintaining the same economic policy".

Other issues on the agenda include the situation in Ukraine and Libya. As regards Greece, he explained that what is important is for the country to meet its commitments and that decisions are adopted where they should be adopted, which is at Eurogroup meetings.