Spain takes over EU presidency
02.01.2010 11:45 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The six-month rotating post passed from Sweden to
Spain at the stroke of midnight, and the country launched EU
presidency stint in the helm with a spectacular sound and light show
for New Year’s Eve revelers gathered at the Puerta del Sol, one of
Madrid’s most emblematic plazas.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Spain’s main goal as
EU president is "to fight for economic recovery, for recovery from the
crisis, and make Europe an economy that is more and more productive,
more and more innovative and more and more sustainable."

Zapatero also said that under the new Treaty of Lisbon, which went
into effect Dec. 1, the 27-member European Union must work to assert
itself more on the global stage as it deals with powerhouses like the
United States and China.
"We have to make Europe an ever stronger factor in the international
context; a Europe that defends and extends the values of peace,
cooperation, and dialogue among all peoples and nations," Zapatero
said in a short video posted on a Web site the government has created
to launch the presidency.