STORY: Spain can set agenda at helm of rotating EU presidency from July: Spanish expert
DATELINE: June 23, 2023
LENGTH: 00:01:47
LOCATION: Madrid
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the Spanish expert speaking
2. SOUNDBITE (Spanish): JOSE RAMON PIN, Former politician, Emeritus Professor at IESE Business School

STORYLINE:

When Spain takes over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU from Sweden on July 1, the Spanish government will be able to set the union's agenda and political priorities for the next six months before handing over the reins to Hungary, a Spanish political expert told Xinhua in an interview on Thursday.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish): JOSE RAMON PIN, Former politician, Emeritus Professor at IESE Business School
"As it involves 27 countries, it's difficult for the interests of just one country to predominate. But what is true is that the important thing is which issues are given priority on the agenda, which in Spain's case could be the issue of energy.
This presidency, like all the other presidencies, will have been exhaustively prepared and as for the issues to be debated in the Council of Europe, it will already be just about decided whether they go ahead or be postponed for further study.
What is Europe's position in the new international geopolitics that has developed due to the energy, supply, and COVID crises, and how the Ukraine conflict is affecting geopolitics?
Whether Europe is successful in forging its own personality depends on whether there are European statesmen capable of carrying out the project of developing an international position for Europe.
We imagined that there will be a presidency with a continuation of prime minister (Pedro) Sanchez's time in office. But now that he's called an early general election, we don't know if the prime minister of Spain will be Sanchez or (Alberto Nunez) Feijoo.
In principle, there won't be any great change."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Madrid.
(XHTV)