Transcript Copy: Notes Following Briefing to Media by Deputy Foreign Minister Sue van der Merwe and Mr Angel Lossada, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Spain on the Conclusion of the Fifth Annual SA-Spanish Consultations, Friday 21 November 2008, Pretoria

Remarks by Deputy Minister van der Merwe

First of all let me say how pleased we are to welcome Secretary of State Losada to South Africa for his first visit. We had very engaged conversation in the morning on a number of issues of mutual interest and concern to Spain and South Africa.

We touched on our political relationship which we both regard as extremely important one as well as a very active one and we reiterated at this time our invitation from our Foreign Minister to Foreign Minister Moratinos from Spain to come and visit South Africa on an official visit. We were also thereby hoping to extend an invitation to Prime Minister Zapatero in order for him to come on an official visit to South Africa in the hope that we can broaden and deepen further our already very good relationship.

Ladies and gentlemen, South Africa and Spain have experienced good growth in the area of our trade relationship. We have got a number of important Spanish companies and investors in South Africa as well as looking at a number of important opportunities that exist for 2010 World Cup investments and infrastructure in particular.

We also discussed the fact that Spain offered language training to some of our tour guides in South Africa, something much appreciated by our South African tour guides and the tourism industry in general.

Ladies and gentlemen, Spain has implemented an Africa Plan, which is relatively new. South Africa is very delighted with this plan because it puts an emphasis on Southern Africa which was not necessarily a priority in the past.

We think that there will be a lot of opportunities for South Africa and Spain to coopertate in peace keeping, in conflict resolution and in other trilateral arrangements in the continent. So we were very delighted to discuss some of these conflict areas with our counterparts and come to some agreement on the way in which we both see the way forward to deepening peace on our continent.

We also touched on a number of multilateral issues including the recent G-20 meeting in Washington, where both our countries were represented, on the financial crisis. This was very important to establish common areas of work going forward in this area so that we look at a new financial architecture for the globe that we can all subscribe to.

We talked also about EU- South Africa relationship and how we can ensure there is a process of developing the EPAs ensures that the process itself deepens regional integration. We also touched on the reform of the UN institutions.

I believe that we had a very active and engaged discussion today and we look forward to taking these matters further through the Working Groups that have been working in the last couple of days together and through our respective foreign ministries.

We believe as South Africa that it was a very useful engagement.

Thank you.

Remarks by Mr Lossada

Thank you Deputy Minister for your welcoming words.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to…not to complement because I subscribe to what the Deputy Minister has already said but to make some additional points of what were the conversations today and to stress what I think is the main political message of this meeting today. The main political message today is that between South Africa and Spain we are building a strategic partnership. We are both fundamental regional countries – each one in its region – but at the same time we are both global players; we are countries with a global reach. Hence I think this is what we want to make and to put into value together.  South Africa is the biggest economy in Africa; it is a global political player; it is a moral reference in the world because of its very recent past. Spain is also probably the closest that there is political reference in terms of democracy; democratic transition, and it is the 8th economy in the world and a member of the EU.

So there is a lot of ground for both countries to cooperate. We have together tackled issues like the financial crisis, we were together in Washington; we have to address issues like fighting poverty – we cannot forget fighting poverty because we have to address the financial system. We have to make sure that the financial system goes back to what it needs to be, which is financing development, financing the fight against poverty. We have to manage migration together; we have to curb proliferation together.

We are exchanging views in all these issues. We are helping to promote democracy and human rights together. We have to curb arms trade together and we are already working – this is another area we discussed in the morning. We were together in the UN for preparing for an arms trade treaty. We have to fight terrorism together.

Of course we talked about bilateral issues. I would like to underline and subscribe with what the Deputy Minister said in terms of our growing economic and investment and the importance of our relations. We are preparing to sign a memorandum on that. We are planning to increase our work in infrastructure in collaboration.

We have discussed renewable energy. The world needs renewable energy. We have identified mutual interests in this area. We are preparing for a conference in Madrid for the international renewal energies agency; we have invited South Africa of course – to participate to create an international renewal energies agency which will foster the use of these this clean energy in the world.

We have talked about the next defence committee; we will address bilateral defence issues in March 2009. We have talked about development issues with a special emphasis on creating programmes of trilateral cooperation between our two countries and third regional countries. We have been talking within the Working Groups about Home Affairs cooperation particularly in the fields of migration management. We proposed the way in which we can cooperate for the good success of the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup – we have also a lot of experience in the guarantee of security during this event. We have begun discussing a memorandum on combating crime and a programme of cultural cooperation – [that was] just to hint on the intensity and the potential of the bilateral relations and our possible common action on the global scene.

Thank you very much.

Questions and Answers

Question: To Deputy Minister van der Merwe. Can you elaborate more on the language classes being given by Spain to tour guides and in relation to tourism opportunities?

Answer: [Deputy Minister van der Merwe] On the language training, some of it has already taken place and some South Africans have already been to Spain; have received the training and are equipped therefore to be able to engage with Spanish-speaking visitors. We think this is very important and in the run up to 2010 because if you consider how many visitors we will receive from Latin America who are Spanish-speaking and from Spain itself. We think it is very important that our people are prepared to receive the visitors in their home language.

So we are very grateful to Spain for providing this opportunity. We are looking at a range of other areas. Spain as a leading country in terms of tourism, is one of the largest destinations for international tourism and we believe we have got a lot to learn from that.

There are projects underway currently that we look into the future to continue expanding the relationship that we can have with Spain on learning more what tourism countries do best.

Question: To Mr Lossada. You said earlier that Africa was low on Spain’s list of foreign priorities. What has changed now? Why is it more important now?

Answer: [Mr Lossada] It is true in the foreign policy of Spain when we look southwards; we have always been looking primarily to North Africa because of reasons of proximity. Now in the last four years we have added a new dimension of foreign policy, which is to look at Sub-Saharan Africa, which is in part in a globalised world, is our closest vicinity, it is our neighbourhood, it is home – for good and for bad; for opportunities and for problems.

We have to address that, and to address it together with the countries of that region, that is what the Plan Africa is about – how we address common problems, common issues together. That is the approach we have taken, it is not a policy for Africa but a policy with Africa. We want to implement it that way.

So we took a lot of measures in those four years in order to make this priority operational, otherwise it would be just rhetoric.

I will just mention some of them.

• We have opened six new Embassies in African countries in the last four years;
• We have multiplied by almost [nine percent] the development cooperation to Africa in the four years. In 2004 we were in the average of €150 million for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. In 2008 we are over € 1 000 million for sub-Saharan Africa, which is for the first time our aid to development to Africa was bigger than that of Latin America, which is taking into account the emphasis and importance of [inaudible] to Latin America

Those are some of the examples. We have also created programmes of infrastructure mostly with western Africa and of course with southern Africa where we have very good relations with the countries in that area – Angola, Mozambique and South Africa.

We opened a new institution called the Africa House. It is what we want to be a window of Africa in Spain and a window of Spain to Africa. It is a platform to encounter and for working together and fostering mutual knowledge and ideas and fostering adequate perception of each other.

This is also a new instrument we have in our foreign policy towards Africa.
           
Question: To Mr Lossada. On the Spanish Africa Plan you talk about being committed to rolling out that plan but given the global financial crisis, don’t you see this as a serious impediment in achieving that kind of an objective? Are you able to give us details of what that entails and over what period?

Answer: [Mr Lossada] In the new Plan Africa we want to enforce all that; to put new priorities and to address together with the continent the whole range of issues we have. One of them is the financial crisis.

Fighting poverty is a political compromise of the Spanish government, of Prime Minister Zapatero, of Minister Moratinos – it is at the heart of our foreign policy. We have an electoral compromise when we went into power to raise the Spanish development cooperation aid to 0.7 percent of the GDP. We are ready to keep this promise as it is. The financial crisis will have an effect on all of us but we think that the real economic questions in the world right now should continue to be fighting poverty and reaching the Millennium Development Goals. This should be the priority for the international community, and the international community should not forget its priority even in the middle of a financial crisis.       

Question: On the issue of bilateral trade, what are the sectors that you think South African companies can tap into in the Spanish market if we are going to increase our trade interests in Spain?

Answer: [Deputy Minister van der Merwe] The current trade balance is in South Africa’s favour. We are looking in addition to South African companies in Spain to encourage some investment in South Africa too. One of the areas we touched on is renewable energy area where there are some very important Spanish companies, global players who we think could play a big role in helping us reach our renewable energy targets by establishing factories and investing in our country.

So there is the two-way trade which we think we have done well on but where we think we can improve. Tourism is another area which we have touched on, so is agro-processing and car and car parts manufacturing. These are all areas in which we believe both countries can improve our numbers going forward.

So we are very happy with our trade relationship with Spain at the moment but there is always an opportunity for improvement.

Question: We have seen a wave of piracy along the Gulf of Aden, and obviously when we talk about trade we talk about goods transiting that point. As Spain how serious is this issues and are there any means to cooperate with your EU partners in making sure that you address that challenge out there?

Answer: [Mr Lossada] Yes it is a worrying situation. We had our share of hijacked ships just some months ago. Since then we have been trying to work very hard on finding instruments for cooperation of the international community on that.

Firstly, the real solution to what is going on in Somalia will come when the crisis and the Somali situation is solved, or at least in the process of being solved. It is politics; it is development that will solve the issue. Meanwhile we have to continue tackling the issue. We have to bear in mind that it is through the stabilisation of Somalia that we will have the final solution to that.

Secondly, what we thought could be done was to create an international legal framework to address this issue. Spain has been supporting in that sense, the UNSC effort to have a legal framework that helps the international community to address the issue with the consent, of course, of the Somali authorities. That is what he UNSC did.

Thirdly, we began to work with other countries that have been affected by this problem because it affects the trade route to organise a joint operation under this legal umbrella of the military means of surveillance of the seas in order to protect the ships and to fight against piracy. We are mounting at the EU an open operation where all the countries in the EU can participate in order to address this issue from a law enforcement point of view, to fight these networks.

Question: On the Western Sahara issue, there has since been talks there. This is a protracted situation and there seems to be no end is sight. What is Spain doing now to ensure that we have a lasting solution to the political crisis there?

Answer: [Mr Lossada] What we see as a priority in Spain is that the UN system continue to do its job there, which is to make it possible that different UNSC resolutions [inaudible]; that the process of negotiation that was initiated there [inaudible]; that the new Special Envoy is nominated so that he can work with the parties in order to establish this track of negotiations. In order to achieve a solution it has to be just and reliable.

[Deputy Minister van der Merwe] If I may just add to the Western Sahara issue; we are in agreement in this matter – that it must follow the UN processes and that we must work towards and enabling the parties to reach a peaceful and negotiated settlement that is fair and just. We are very pleased to have learnt of the appointment of the new UN Special Envoy who we hope will take forward the process under the auspices of the UN to avoid any further delay in achieving a settlement in that area.

So we have agreed on these matters and we had some discussion around them.

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21 November 2008