Mariano Rajoy’s first taste of being the next president of Spain

MADRID | The Spanish press on Wednesday published reports of the newly elected Spanish President Mariano Rajoy’s trip to Marseille, where he will meet with US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and then, later on, jointly with French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Rajoy will also have the opportunity to meet with the president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, and with the Polish prime minister Donald Tusk. This is Rajoy’s first internacional trip since he won the general election on November 20. He will be attending meetings during the European Popular Party Summit.

Each news outlet emphasises a different aspect of Rajoy’s first international meeting. While Europa Press comments that his intention is to defend his economic project and reiterate a message of confidence, and that Spain will meet its deficit commitments (something he has been now saying for weeks), the daily newspaper, El Mundo says that the future president

“has travelled to Marseille to hold high level meetings in order to save the euro.”

The digital publication La informacion highlights the idea that

“Rajoy will have just about five minutes to publicly address his European Popular Party fellow members […] Popular Party sources have explained that, given the format of the meeting, more informal that the European Council Summit that will be held in Brussels this Friday, this type of bilateral meetings amongst leaders are dealt with during the days before or even provided with contacts that are established during the official meetings.”

Rajoy will not be attending the European leaders’ summit meeting on Friday but both the outgoing president Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as well as Rajoy have already announced that Spain’s position during the meeting will be one they both agree on.

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The Corner
The Corner has a team of on-the-ground reporters in capital cities ranging from New York to Beijing. Their stories are edited by the teams at the Spanish magazine Consejeros (for members of companies’ boards of directors) and at the stock market news site Consenso Del Mercado (market consensus). They have worked in economics and communication for over 25 years.

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