Aznar determined Spain should stay a ‘big player’

Date: 07/03/1996

By Elizabeth Wise

JOSE Maria Aznar has said he wants Spain to be a big player in the EU and not relegated to the second division when member states are selected for future integration.

But when negotiations on the Union's future begin, Spain will start with a disadvantage.

The Spanish premier-elect will not even attend the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference in Turin on 29 March, as he will not yet have taken office.

Instead, outgoing Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez and his Foreign Minister Carlos Westendorp will represent Spain in Turin, even though they will have only a few days left in office.

And it is not yet clear whether Aznar and his centre-right Partido Popular (PP) will be able to rule Spain with a firm hand, or will remain tangled in politicking to keep a coalition intact.

Aznar's narrow election victory on 2 March left the PP 20 seats shy of the 156 needed to hold an absolute majority in the 350-seat parliament.

He is courting the centre-right Catalan party, Convergència i Unió (CiU), which will hold 16 seats in the next parliament, but has not won any promises from the Catalans yet.

Aznar has not even ruled out talking with Gonzalez's Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) if he fails to form a coalition with the CiU.

The new parliament convenes on 27 March and it will be a week or so before Aznar can be invested. At best, he will take office during the first week of April; at worst - if his programme is rejected by the congress, or if he is still unable to find a coalition partner - he could be forced to wait another two months.

Meanwhile, the PSOE, which has become accustomed to running the country during 13 years in power, may have a hard time shedding the habit. Gonzalez told cheering supporters this week that if the PP could not form a government, “then other possibilities will be opened up”.

Aznar's stated positions on European policy so far do not differ much from those of Gonzalez, so a change-over after the IGC has begun may not change the tone of Spain's contributions to the negotiations.

But if Spain's new premier is preoccupied with establishing his own position, and a non-government dangles in the air too long, Aznar's hopes for giving Spain a leading role in the new Europe may be dashed from the start.