Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Spain's main goal as EU president was "to fight for economic recovery, for recovery from the crisis, and make Europe an economy that is more and more productive, more and more innovative and more and more sustainable." As the first EU head of state to assume control of the EU after the Lisbon Treaty went into effect on Dec 1, Mr Zapatero must share his power with Herman Von Rompuy, the Belgian president of the union. Mr Zapatero also said that the 27-member European Union should work to assert itself more on the global stage as it deals with powerhouses like the United States and China. "We have to make Europe an ever stronger factor in the international context; a Europe that defends and extends the values of peace, cooperation, and dialogue among all peoples and nations," Mr Zapatero said in a short video posted on a website the government created to launch the presidency. One of the key goals of the Lisbon Treaty is to streamline EU decision-making procedures so the bloc can act with more agility. The EU's efforts to resurrect the economy will now be led by the country that is one of the worst off of all 27 member states. Spain has an EU-high unemployment rate of 17.9 per cent, about double the bloc's average. While countries including France and Germany have managed to climb out of technical recession, Spain has acknowledged it is lagging behind and will not see net creation of jobs until late this year. Spain had posted nearly a decade of solid and sometimes robust growth, largely on the strength of its construction sector, until the real estate bubble collapsed over the past two years.Spain takes over EU presidency
Spain took over the presidency of the European Union on Friday, when the six-month rotating post passed from Sweden to Spain at the stroke of midnight.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
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