03/07/2012

Navacerrada (Madrid), 03.07.12.- The second day of the International Affairs Course of the 2012 FAES Campus is called ‘Recovering Spain’s Position and Influence in the World’. The first session has been a round table on ’Spain’s country brand’, and the speaker invited to depart on this have been the former minister for Foreign Affairs, Josep Piqué; Ambassador Javier Rupérez; and the Chairman of Elcano Royal Institute, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa. Chairing the table was secretary for International Relations of the Partido Popular, José Ramón García.

Josep Piqué:

“A country’s foreign policy, its international presence is not only responsibility of its diplomacy but, above all, of the foreign perception if its degree of internal strength and soundness”.

“The decline undergone by Spain’s country Brand is not only due to the economic crisis, but also to the existence of particular orientations leading us adrift of the set track […]. The continuity and consensus regarding foreign policy are essential and there must be a clear continuity which has not been respected in recent years”.

“We can all help reconstruct the decline of our country’s image. The best way to do it is becoming again a serious country, being perceived as such, a country that is rigorous, loyal, hard-working, honest, reliable, which respects our commitments and works for institutions as a whole; this is a vital, strategic issue, which should be an extremely high priority for our Government”.

“An essential lever of Spain’s good image is the Crown, because it reflects the image of the country as a whole and its capability to hold together Institutions and their prestige are a basic element. The government is also essential, it should convey the image of a country wanting to have a good image and therefore it must work to recover its reliability as a partner and ally; and the creation internal, external, political and social consensuses, as well as in the State’s political and administrative structure. Right now, the perception that some regions do not support a shared project is something we must bear in mind”.

“The best way of reconstructing Spain’s image is restoring the good running of the country. If we recover economic growth, reduce the unemployment rate, normalize financial markets and, in short, begin to work well, we will be in a condition to reconstruct Spain’s country brand”.

Javier Rupérez:

“The Brand or image must correspond to reality, if there’s not an underlying reality the only thing we do with our image is a marketing exercise that lasts a short time and has even less use”.

“We must create a recipe book for recovery based on reality, in rebuilding Spain’s internal fortress”.

“Our country must be well administered so that it spends only what it may and what it has, with a sound economy, devoted to education, with democratic stability and external respect. We must train ourselves in a new culture of austerity and make urgent considerations like the State’s territorial structure, which has to be deep to make the system more coherent and effective and avoid a very serious balkanisation of Spain”.

“We must make a deep reconsideration of the country’s education parameters, because we can’t boast about our country if Spaniards are badly educated and sometimes, don’t even manage to control their own language which is the most important heritage we have”.

“Spain’s country Brand needs a clear and convincing vision of its place in the world. The best definition with regard to this is being a European, democratic and Western country, and those three adjectives can define what Spain should do: acquire a vital commitment with European evolution, having a clearly Atlantic vocation, and stay permanently in democratic stability”.

Emilio Lamo de Espinosa:

“Everything circulating in a globalised world bears the Brand of the State to which it belongs and this is the primary source of information about itself”.

“An image is not the same as reality, it’s a representation of it and we must be clear about the distance there is between how things are and how we perceive them, therefore this representation must adjust itself to reality”.

“There are no negative elements in the Spanish foreign image, it has always been more positive than negative, although it is currently very deteriorated and stereotyped. This is an old image that is there, and the results are both good and bad: good, because it’s a strong image and historically very noticeable and bad, because precisely for that, it’s very difficult to change”.

“The effects of the economic crisis have been terrible for Spain’s foreign image, also in terms of self-reputation, as the confidence of Spaniards in our country has collapsed”.

José Ramón García:

“The political value which must guide all actions to create Spain’s country Brand is the recovery of patriotism”.

“A country’s reputation as a concept of fame is its citizens’ and corporations’ reputation, and this plays an essential role which must articulate a coherent speech focused on common interest groups”.

“The parameters that measure a country’s reputation are political freedom, their system of values, life standard, business attitude, heritage, culture and tourism ".

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