09/07/2011
José María Aznar: “The 2011 Campus, like everything we do at FAES Foundation, has the aim of contributing to the political debate with the best ideas and with the desire that, very soon, our nation may profit from a good Government, a Government that is serious, solvent, effective, responsible and also patriotic”
“A Government determined to revert the appalling economic, political and institutional inheritance that the Socialists will leave behind them as our burden. Likewise, a Government devoted to recover for Spain the international influence lost by a cocktail of Adamism, improvisation, frivolity and sectarism which we have endured for eight years”
“A Government committed to set Spain back on the road to prosperity. That was precisely the title of the first course of the Campus. We have seen that recovering the road to prosperity is the same as recovering the continuity of reforms, a continuity that broke, like so many good things did, nearly eight years ago”
“Because reformism is not hastily doing, and because they’re demanding it from abroad, one or two cosmetic changes, and least of all simulating that you’re doing it just to deceive and divert your creditors and those who have demanded it from abroad”
“Europe is our first external reference. Political decisions have a European scope. And one of the most important tasks of the next Government will be to overcome the inheritance of a marginal Spain”
“The work to be done to manage the recovery of our nation from the “impressive” legacy of the Socialists will be huge. We will have to work very hard to recover a Spain that is a part of the solutions of Europe and not, as it is sadly the case now, one of its main problems”
“We still don’t know the extent and possibilities for the future of what has already become known as the Arab Spring, but what we do know is that our ethical and political duty is to support the yearning for liberty of all people and support democrats all around the world. We are all entitled to live in open societies capable of creating opportunities for their people. For all, with no exceptions”
“However much some try to disguise it as an unexpected meteorite or a world tsunami, it is increasingly clear every day that the crisis endured by Spain is less international and more our own as every day goes by; and that it isn’t just economic, but also political and institutional”
“We have analysed the key issues of the most effective reforms that have been implemented in the European Welfare States. Those key issues are very simple: more civil society and more freedom to choose; all this under the guarantee of the State. We must not forget that a rational and feasible State demands a sustainable welfare model”