27/09/2012
In Lima, during the closing session of the first FAES Campus Peru, at San Ignacio de Loyola University, USIL
Zarzalejos: "A country's institutional frame is a factor of competitiveness"
"The State is a nation's political articulation, as a guarantor of the freedoms and rights of people"
The secretary-general of FAES has put an end to three days of debate with the president of USIL, Díez Canseco
The secretary-general of FAES Foundation, Javier Zarzalejos, has closed in Lima the first FAES Campus Peru, which has lasted three days and was celebrated at San Ignacio de Loyola University, USIL. In his address, Zarzalejos stated that "A country's institutional frame is a factor of competitiveness". "The State is a nation's political articulation, as a guarantor of the freedoms and rights of people" he stressed to the audience.
According to the secretary-general of FAES, "promising heaven on Earth is not a part of our intellectual repertoire, nor is it offering nearly everything in exchange of practically nothing. The fight against poverty is waged through reforms", they entail "a fight for emancipation and not for a new dependence". "We need ideas because what's been offered as substitute doesn't work; postmodernity is finished", he declared.
He also referred to one of the main ideas promoting the various FAES Campuses celebrated in Latin America, the joining of the like-minded, which "start with the patriotic affinity in the basic consensus on the rules of the democratic game" Zarzalejos declared.
Zarzalejos, who claimed this first FAES Campus Peru was a success, finished by saying that "the debate unfolded here is an exercise if civil responsibility". "Peru is a country of extraordinary natural resources, but it also has an extraordinary youth demanding a political exercise that responds to regeneration expectations".
Zarzalejos' words closed the Campus at a closing session also addressed by USIL's founding president, Ra?l D?ez Canseco. Since last Monday September 24 more than 500 people attended the Campus, amongst them the former Prime Minister of Spain and president of FAES, "José María Aznar, who opened the sessions and launched the FAES report "_Latin America: An Agenda for Freedom 2012, and the Vice-President of Peru, Marisol Espinoza Cruz. In addition to this, the Campus was also attended by ministers and former ministers, congressmen, mayors, scholars and journalists.
SPAIN-PERU BOND
The Campus also had the participation, amongst others, of the deputy director of International Relations of FAES, José Herrera, and the coordinator of Latin American Programmes, Guillermo Hirschfeld. Herrera, who participated in a table called 'Peru, Spain: A Prosperity Bond', analysed the relationship between both countries and their "common history which witnessed their transformation into open and democratic societies and openness to the world". In this sense, he stressed that "Spain is promoting an Association Agreement between the European Union and Peru", a commitment which will "contribute to Peru's and Spain's economic progress".
On the other Hand, Hirschfeld, at the table 'Challenges and Risks of the Region', noted the "importance of investing in education, talent and, in short, in the future of over 100 million youths who constitute the Latin American social fabric and the greatest asset of the region". As a global reference, he assured that "one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century is offering food to the billion persons that form the middle classes".