Spain's six-month tenure at the EU helm, which came to an end in June, witnessed a series of EU-level discussions on proposals for budget supervision and possible sanctions for member states that do not respect the rules.
Asked about Spain's position in discussions on EU economic governance, Dezcallar de Mazarredo said that his country sees it is ''absolutely necessary'' and wants to put the new mechanisms in place as soon as possible.
''We are coming from ten years of European stagnation. Europe was sending bad news all the time. Now we are doing something which is really very important for the economic integration of Europe,'' the diplomat said.
However, he noted the lack of political discourse accompanying the proposals and acknowledged that a huge obstacle to achieving economic union remains – member state governments thinking in national terms.
''These substantial steps are still not accompanied by a clear political discourse, a positive political vision – not only of what Europe is avoiding by doing this, but of what it can achieve: much more solid economic performance, a better capacity to compete with other parts of the world, an awareness that our economic interests demand common answers and in the end, something which will have inevitable implications towards political integration,'' stated the ambassador.
Spain would not welcome treaty change at this stage and would rather ''establish solid mechanisms within the existing treaties,'' he added.
Kosovo: independence 'not the best solution'
The ambassador also explained Spain's position on Kosovo at the recent EU-Western Balkans conference. Serbia is currently awaiting the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the status of its former province, due in the coming weeks.
Spain, with clear regional tensions of its own, is one of five EU member states not to have recognised the independence of Kosovo, which was declared unilaterally in February 2008. Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Slovakia are the others.
''For Spain, it was not so clear why independence was the only possible solution to the problem. We understood the situation but thought that independence was not the best solution. This is why we took the position we took and this is not only Spain's position but that of many other countries – not only in the European Union,'' he stated.
''We have a disagreement on independence. But in the global picture, we are in full agreement. We want stability for the Balkans, we want a European perspective for all the Balkan countries and we want it to stop being a region in which problems occur,'' he added.
