(Published in the Foreign Affairs Supplement of Libertad Digital on 25th December 2006)

 

It would be a laughing matter if it were not so sad. Zapatero began his time in Government with the idea of changing Spain’s alliances, and he paid little heed to the possibility of diminishing the country’s status in the international arena in order to achieve this goal. The result is what, in May 2004, we called "The Diminished Spain of Zapatero".

Unfortunately for our ever-smiling Prime Minister, pulling Spain out of its former alliances was not compensated by its entry into any other alliance, either new or old. The Europe to which he so fervently wished to return soon left him in the lurch. For this reason, and because of his childish left-wing tendencies, Zapatero’s policy led Spain to seek alliances with any anti-American leader who crossed his path.

The year two thousand and five was the year of Third World leaders, of cuddling up to dictators such as Castro and Chávez; it was the year of a false rapprochement with Morocco and it marked the commencement of talks with Middle Eastern despots such as Bashar al-Assad in Syria. In short, it was a year in which Spain found itself on the margins, diminished and alone. And the year two thousand and six was the year in which the Socialist Government’s foreign policy suffered a series of significant setbacks. Wherever he went in order to defend his radical ideas, Zapatero was thwarted. It was the year in which the PSOE Government’s foreign policy became a laughing stock. It was the year of Spain’s zero influence. Even worse: Spain was placed in a position of ridicule.

We must start by recalling that the year 2006 was a very quiet year in terms of Rodríguez Zapatero’s foreign policy activity. In fact, he hardly met any of his counterparts over and above the formal meetings of the various international bodies of which Spain forms a part (EU Council Meetings, the UN Assembly and the NATO Summit). Our Prime Minister was criticized during the first quarter of the year for his lack of any foreign policy agenda, and although he sought to appear more active after the summer, he barely managed to do so.
There is nothing more depressing than flicking through the pages on the Government’s web-site that refer to Zapatero’s foreign affairs activities. For January 2006, his meeting with the President of General Electric is the only other business apart from the visit undertaken by Evo Morales. In February, Vladimir Putin’s visit stands alone. In total, the Government’s record shows that just 33 dignitaries visited the Prime Minister. Within Europe, only important figures from France and the United Kingdom came to call, unless we include the Mayor of Rome, representing Italy.

With regard to Zapatero’s own trips as Head of Government, the record is even worse. If we disregard the compulsory appointments at summits that all Prime Ministers must attend (European Councils, NATO Summits, soirées with Latin American leaders, the UN General Assembly, etc) and which led Rodríguez Zapatero to make eight trips abroad, his trips and visits to other countries came to seven in all. And with the sole exception of the first, which took place in April when he travelled to Germany to discuss the Endesa takeover bid with Merkel, the rest took place during the second half of the year, more than half of them during the month of December.

This is how the record stands in quantitative terms. However, with regard to substance, the results are certainly no better. To provide just one example: the trip that, perhaps, should have been the most important for Spain in strategic terms, the Prime Minister’s trip to India last July, was not only cut short for unexpected reasons, but even featured the absence of one of the Government’s most important ministers for bilateral talks, the Minister for Industry, who was heavily involved in a regional electoral campaign in Catalonia.

As has now become customary, we must also recall that none of the inner circle at the Bush Administration has travelled to Madrid. With meetings at a higher level being entirely out of the question, the Spanish Foreign Office has been selling us the ever-imminent visit of the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, an increasingly forlorn prospect. First the trip was going to take place before the summer recess, but then the Lebanon, the Prime Minister’s condemnation of Israel and that prodigious photo of Zapatero wearing the symbolic Palestinian headdress, the kefiya (a photo which, by the way, went round the world and which we have even seen on the walls of various US Administration offices), in addition to other diary complications, led to Rice’s trip to Spain being postponed. The visit was then announced for September, and then for November ...

We do not know whether it is because of the Prime Minister’s repeated criticisms of the Bush Administration – and there is no international forum where Zapatero does not condemn the intervention in Iraq and attempt to ridicule White House policy – but the year 2006 has come and gone, and Condi has still not arrived. And 2006 was supposed to be the year in which Spain normalised its bilateral relations with the United States, because the Latin American agenda depended on bilateral cooperation. Nevertheless, it is curious to observe that, in spite of the fact that Trinidad Jiménez is now Foreign Secretary for Latin American Affairs and no longer a mere councillor at Madrid City Council, the Americans, when they wish to discuss Latin America with our Government, talk to Bernardino León and not to Trinidad Jiménez.

In short, from the contacts that Rodríguez Zapatero has pursued, we can deduce that one issue stands out above all others with regard to his foreign policy preoccupations: emigration towards Spain. It is true that his trip to Morocco, on the eve of a summit, organised precisely on the topic of population flows, was postponed, in spite of the fact that it had been publicised with much fanfare by the Deputy Prime Minister, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, who, after meeting Yetou, announced the date.

However, the long-waited day, 8 September, came and Rabat duly cancelled the much-vaunted visit, without offering much of an explanation as to the reason why. The Spanish Government scheduled the meeting for three weeks later, but the year drew to a close and the meeting still has not take taken place. Perhaps for this reason, and motivated by a temper tantrum rather than any significant trade considerations, Rodríguez Zapatero finally ended up visiting the neighbouring country, Algeria. th

However, this visit did not go too well: Morocco took note of Zapatero’s response and Bouteflika told him a few home truths in Algeria about affairs that were only too obvious, such as Madrid’s overzealous support for Rabat and its abandonment of the Saharan cause, which the Spanish Left is as heavily implicated in as the Algerian Government. Zapatero’s advisor on international affairs, Ambassador Casajuana, should have warned the Prime Minister of the risks. Or perhaps he did and the Prime Minister did not believe he would have such a rough time or that the Spanish press would be as alert as it was regarding the affair. Whatever the case may be, it was embarrassing in the extreme.

During the same month, and culminating a flurry of prior visits by members of the Government, the Prime Minister travelled to Senegal. In theory, this trip was organised for him to sign an agreement whereby the country’s authorities would formally accept the repatriation of illegal emigrants from Senegal. According to the Deputy Prime Minister, this matter had been settled since the preparatory visit, back in May of that year. However, if this were really the case, Senegal must have changed its mind in the intervening months, because Rodríguez Zapatero returned to Madrid with the agreement unsigned. This trip was a complete waste of time.

We should recall that things were not, in fact, quite so clear with Dakar as was suggested. When Rubalcaba travelled to Senegal at the end of August, he achieved nothing more than a precarious understanding regarding mixed patrols, which, of course, would be paid by Spain. Sarkozy, his French counterpart, signed an agreement with Senegal just a few weeks later in which the French Navy would patrol the coasts of this African country.

The question of illegal immigrants has led Zapatero into a number of serious scuffles with his dearest European partners, starting with his beloved France. In response to the successive petitions presented by De la Vega to our Community partners (she turned up in Brussels in May and travelled to Finland in September), the EU has not only failed to mobilise the resources that the Spanish Government hoped it might, but it has reminded Zapatero time and again that the problem was created by Spain itself, as a result of the magnet effect created by the unilateral mass regularisation carried out by the Socialist Government.

Some observers, such as Sarkozy, have ventured that the EU might prohibit regularisation processes that are adopted unilaterally by Member Countries. The tension created by this issue is such that Zapatero himself has officially expressed his anger at the French stance in the records of proceedings of the Spanish Parliament:

If certain countries are looking to lecture us on their policy in this respect, we’re not interested; and we’re not interested in what the French Minister for Home Affairs might say, especially after the scenes we have witnessed in the neighbourhoods of Paris.

Sarkozy was relatively diplomatic in his response, but Chirac once again put the apprentice, Zapatero, firmly in his place at the European Summit of Lathi, where the matter came up again. "I have spoken in the same spirit and along the same lines as the Home Affairs Minister when he addressed Mr. Zapatero", the French President declared to the press. "All of the countries that form part of Schengen suffer the consequences entailed by these regularisations". Chirac dixit, and the Spanish Government and the Minister for Employment and Social Affairs, Jesús Caldera, were obliged to swallow their pride in stony silence.

This is not the only disagreement the Government has encountered in Europe. The manoeuvre orchestrated by the Socialist candidate for Mayor of Madrid, Miguel Sebastián, against Endesa led to an even more serious deterioration in Zapatero’s relations with the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. Smiles all round, but opposing positions.
The German Chancellor, who is versed in the liberal creed, considered the Spanish Government’s interventionism to be unacceptable; However, being more astute than Zapatero, she made it look as if she were leaving it up to the market and the law to decide who bought Endesa. Merkel may well have received better advice from high places within the EU, starting with Portugal’s José Manuel Durao Barroso. The result: the takeover favoured by the Spanish Government failed to materialise and the personal distrust towards Zapatero has grown.

The Government’s disagreements are not limited to its European partners either. In spite of all the flattery at the Salamanca Summit, the Socialist Government was unable to sell Chávez the weapons systems that the Venezuelan dictator wished to buy from Spain. Chávez, who is only really interested in selling himself, ended up playing a dirty trick on Zapatero in response to his failed commitment: granting nationality to four members of ETA who had taken refuge in Venezuela in order to save them from an extradition order, whilst providing them with jobs and succulent financial support. In the end, diplomatic pressure managed to reverse the situation, but the harm inflicted on the Government’s image, not to mention Spain’s image, was already done.

Things did not go any better with the stripy-jumpered idol of the indigenists, Evo Morales, who was invited to Madrid on an official visit as a guest of Their Majesties the King and Queen. From the very beginning, our Prime Minister proved to be reluctant to be photographed alongside the Bolivian leader, and he resorted, in a disgraceful ruse, to ensuring that the King was photographed with him. He also tried to convince Mariano Rajoy to be photographed with Morales, who declined. Nobody with half a brain would be so despicably wheedled into such a situation.

This was at the beginning of January. Evo had already announced the support he received from the Spanish Ministry for Foreign Affairs during his electoral campaign, as well as the promises made by the Spanish Foreign Office if he assumed the reins of power. And he began asking for favours. Whatever Morales may have obtained in the end, the fact is that four months later he announced the nationalisation by decree of the hydrocarbons sector, which was managed in good part by the Spanish oil company, Repsol YPF. Aid continued to reach La Paz and the Spanish Government proceeded to cancel a debt valued at one hundred million euros, in spite of the fact that Morales stated that he would not compensate anyone for his actions.

As is customary in these cases, the Deputy Prime Minister travelled to Bolivia at the beginning of August and, although she rated her trip very highly, Morales declared that he would not except "swaggering behaviour" from anybody and, in early September, demanded that the Spanish company pay an additional tax of 32%, aimed at capitalising the state-owned oil corporation, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales de Bolivia (YPFB). Another great success for Spanish diplomacy.

In short, there are many other anecdotes we might bring up, such as the famous "pearl necklace" that His Holiness the Pope presented to the Deputy Prime Minister as a gift and which, of course, was nothing other than a rosary. However, one saga does seem to stand out from all the others due its far-reaching implications: the congratulations that Hezbollah sent Zapatero on his stance during the Lebanon conflict.

When the spokesman of a terrorist group, in the midst of a campaign of attacks on a country’s population, expresses his respect and admiration, any decent and respectable Government should be seriously worried. But not here. Quite the contrary, in fact. This expression of gratitude led to a renewed series of verbal criticisms regarding Israel’s actions and, finally, to the photo of Zapatero in a kefiya.

The only government Rodríguez Zapatero has not had any problems with over the last year is that of the United Kingdom. Although Zapatero’s press conference with Tony Blair, following their meeting at the Palace of La Moncloa, had its high-points and low-points, the fact is that Downing Street had little to complain about. After the summer, three parties (not two, as has always been the case), namely the authorities on the Rock, Her Majesty’s Government and the Kingdom of Spain, reached an agreement that was labelled "historic" by the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs. And on this occasion he was certainly not wrong.

The problem is that it was only historic because Spain renounced its right to push for its rightful claims. All restrictions were lifted and the Spanish Government agreed to treat Gibraltar as a different country. A Cervantes Institute was even opened on the Rock! The position of the Rock’s inhabitants was strengthened enormously. This was so much the case, in fact, that on 30 November a referendum took place that signified what it quite evidently signified, however much the Spanish Government may seek to dismiss it: the first step towards full independence. th

The figure Rodríguez Zapatero has conferred with the most over the last year is Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations up until last December. Annan supported Zapatero’s proposal, the “Alliance of Civilisations”, and it was natural that they should meet so often. However, as we now know, Annan’s interest was not quite as innocent as we were led to believe (it was difficult to entertain this idea in the first place given that we were dealing with someone who has benefited both collaborators and family members through corruption). Zapatero won over the UNO by promising its Secretary General that he would continue to be a high-standing official, with all the lucrative benefits this entails.

During his last trip to New York, Zapatero advocated that his friend Kofi become the visible head of the Alliance of Civilisations, which has progressed from being a committee of “wise men” to a committee in its own right, a specialised body attached to the UNO, similar to the many others that simply serve to squander a large part of the budget quota paid by the Americans.

The Alliance of Civilisations may be a cause of great satisfaction to the Prime Minister of the Government, but that is only because he does not wish to see any distasteful developments. In reality, the text produced by the committee of wise men only went down well in Turkey (the co-promoter of the idea, to see whether it might secure the country entry into the EU once and for all) and in Saudi Arabia. The EU restricted itself to taking note, whilst in Riga, the twenty-five Member Countries barely acknowledged its existence (more attention was paid to the Millennium Fund promoted by the G-8, which all of the Members consider to be a much more hopeful prospect). This was the meagre result of the Alliance of Civilisations, in spite of the fact that the entire Spanish defence community was obliged to overlook its soldiers scattered half-way round the world, many of them risking their lives in places such as Afghanistan, just so that their vote of support could be slipped in to a final communiqué in favour of Zapatero’s initiative.

Finally, there is the matter of peace missions in times of war, as in Afghanistan. This is a distressing issue, because it affects the safety and lives of a number of compatriots who are serving Spain abroad. And it is especially painful when fatalities occur, such as the soldier from the parachute brigade, Jorge Arnaldo Hernández, whom, in spite of having died as a result of an enemy mine, the Government preferred to regard as having been killed in an accident and not by enemy fire. Shameful, quite frankly. But as we know, Zapatero does not deploy his soldiers to kill or to die, but simply to put out forest fires.

In short, Zapatero’s Spain is a Spain that no longer counts, a country that nobody takes into account (we might ask ourselves why the Spanish troops in the Lebanon are in the worst sector of all). We are not respected by our friends, and even less so by our enemies. And what is worse, this Government’s does not even know how to command respect. The typical flamenco-dancing image of Spain abroad makes the country a laughingstock. All we need now is for Michael Moore to make one of his manipulative documentaries, which he calls films, about the life and work of Zapatero. He would win a Goya Film Award, at the very least.

For Spain’s image and international status, the Prime Minister of the Government, rather than being merely ZP, is more ZPolonium 210, highly toxic and fatal.