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- [00:00]
Indiana University Narrator
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- [00:25]
Bloomberg Announcer
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio.
- [00:29]
Bloomberg Interviewer
News Prime Minister Spain thank you for talking to Bloomberg. It's a pleasure to have you.
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Pedro Sánchez
It's a pleasure.
- [00:35]
Bloomberg Interviewer
I just looked out of all Europe's leaders, you are the one who seems most prepared to disagree with President Trump. You champion the cause of recognizing Palestine, you push, you pushed against the 5% limit on defence spending. You've also been very close to China. I mean, when you heard his speech yesterday, did you which seemed to depict Europe kind of hellhole, did you think that was, do you think that was aimed at you?
- [01:03]
Pedro Sánchez
Well, I think I respectfully disagree with President Trump statement because you know, he took migration and climate change as I would say, the major challenges that we have to fight against for. And I said, well look, if you took the experience of Spain is the contrary. So thanks to claim to these green policies, we have dropped the electricity prices since 2017 till now by 50%. So that enables us to gain competitiveness. And thanks to that, we are witnessing this extraordinary outcome of, of the economic growth in Spain. We represent 30% of the total economic growth of the European Union. And when it comes to migration, in the last seven years we have received 2 million migration migrants, while at the same time we have dropped by 40% the unemploy rate. So all in all, what I'm trying to say is that green transition and migration, when it comes on regular basis are positive for the economic development of a country.
- [02:16]
Bloomberg Interviewer
Do you think, do you think your fellow leaders in Europe could be braver about making those comments?
- [02:22]
Pedro Sánchez
I think that we need to keep transatlantic bond and to strengthen that transatlantic bond, it is indeed true that we need to combine it with other policies such as for instance trade diversification. That is why we are, we've been very vocal in reaching this agreement between the European Union and mercosur, which it will be definitely a game changer in, in our economic ties with other regions of the world. And second, what we do, what we need to do within the European Union is to do our homework, as the former central banker Matt Ragi always remind us. And that means that we need to deepen single market, that we need to competition policy in order to scale up big companies in Europe and try to be, you know, as Good as competitive as a global corporation are in the US and other and other parts of the world.
- [03:21]
Bloomberg Interviewer
It's very interesting though. You look at what's happened, your economy has grown very well, 2.7%. You look at what's happening in other countries on the periphery, like Greece, there is a very interesting thing. A few years ago we were used to saying the periphery is the problem and the core is great. Now it's the other way around. France, France, Germany, Britain barely growing at all. Do you think it is now the center of Europe that is the problem in the economy?
- [03:46]
Pedro Sánchez
No, not at all. I mean, Germany is a big country, big economy, also France and we always expect a positive, let's say dynamic in their economies. But it is indeed true that from the south we can contribute to the economic growth of the European Union. So for instance, when you see that 60% of the electricity generation in pain comes from renewable sources, that means that we have potentiality that we can contribute to the strategic autonomy problems exporting that.
- [04:24]
Bloomberg Interviewer
Don'T you to France?
- [04:25]
Pedro Sánchez
Yeah, well, we need to interconnect better our grids, but we are. We're trying to convince our friends in France to do so. So. So all in all, what I'm trying to say is that if you see the economic figures of the south and Europe, Spain, that represent, and I said before, 30% of the total economic outcome of economic outcome of the European Union, that means that we have achieved many reforms that were demanded by the European Commission over the last years. So we have achieved to reform our labor market, our pension system, our educational system and also our energy policy and digitalization, along with the contribution of migration. So it is true that these pillars also show that the economic background or pillars of office, Spain are quite solid if you compare it to previous periods, such as the one before the financial crisis.
- [05:28]
Bloomberg Interviewer
A selfish question from the point of view of all the foreign investors. Looking at this, many people want to invest in Spain for all the reasons you said, but you want to introduce 100% tax on them if they want to buy a house there, a second home.
- [05:41]
Pedro Sánchez
No, not at all. Not at all. What we would we need to face is a real challenge that I. I think that across Europe and also in England, in the UK you're suffering especially the youth, but not only youth, which is the lack of or the impossibility to access to a house or to emancipate. In the case of our youth. What we did is for all British people or European people that want to buy a house for living. They won't pay taxes. Yeah, but this is the point. We need also to understand that we need to solve a problem of housing that we have in Spain. But all in all, if you see now the figures of the real estate sector and how we are speeding the process of construction in Spain is quite amazing. Nowadays we have increased by 63% construction of, let's say public housing, whilst the private sector has increased like 13% during the last year.
- [06:52]
Bloomberg Interviewer
I ask you a bit about the relationship between the economy and politics. The economy seems to be going very well for you in politics it's harder. Your party is behind the party de Popella. You also got vox coming up this much more right wing outfit and in the current polls you would, you would lose the election. What do you think the problem is? You've got a good economy, unlike most other European prime ministers, and yet you're still behind.
- [07:17]
Pedro Sánchez
Polls are polls. I mean, of course you have to look into it, you have to see. But what I am defending is that unfortunately we are seeing not only in Spain, but across Europe, a political collapse of the center right traditional parties, which by the way, it started after the financial crisis with the failure of governments, with all this rhetoric of austerity banking and the rescue that we had to pay with taxes all around Europe. And what you see now from the center right is that they are copying not only the way of doing politics of far right, but also the contents. So you see now that they are like identifying migration with insecurity, which is a fake, it is not true. And by the way, as said before, when you see the figures in Spain, you can see that we have the contribution of migration, but at the same time we are reducing unemployment rates in Spain. And there are sectors such as construction, agro industry or social services or tourism, which in Spain are quite important, where up to 20, 30% of the total workers comes from different countries and not Spain. So what we need to do is to face that we need migration, but for that migration, what we need to open is a path of regular migration. And this is what we are doing with many countries in Latin America. Also with the US administration, with the previous administration, we reached a very interesting program in order to have this circular migration coming from the US and of course some countries in North Africa. But all in all, the contribution of migration to the economic growth in Spain is quite, quite positive.
- [09:21]
Bloomberg Interviewer
Sounds as if you're kind of, you're bridling for that fight. So you will definitely lead the Socialists in 2027 into the election.
- [09:28]
Pedro Sánchez
Yeah, I will do it for sure. This is something that I have already spoken with my family and with my party and if they allow me, I'm confident that we can repeat the majority and to keep the work ahead. But let me add coming back to migration, that the dilemma that all Western societies we're facing is whether we open up and grow or we close off and shrink. This is the real dilemma that we need to face. The challenge that we have within the European societies is how do we integrate this migration?
- [10:08]
Bloomberg Interviewer
Do you think it's easier in Spain because you get a lot of people from Latin America where everyone speaks the same language? That's at least part of the argument why you might have been better.
- [10:16]
Pedro Sánchez
So when you listen to some center right parties and the far right, they are saying no, well we need to expel all these migrants coming to our okay, so what we do with demographics because either you have family policies, yes plus migration, but they don't propose anything in these two policies. No migrants and less welfare state and therefore less family policies. And that means social services, healthcare, Social Security and so on and so forth. So what I'm trying to say is that if we don't have this contribution of migration, what we will face in the coming years in Europe is that we have stagnation, we won't have the capacity to grow and therefore there will be more cuts in our welfare state. So this is something that we need to explain to our citizens that if we articulate a positive migration policy that will be for the good of the Europeans and the Western societies. So just to give you a figure, 94% of the total migrants that are living nowadays in Spain came from regular SAY systems and they are, they came on legal basis. So we're talking about only 6% and this is the reality. So I think that we need to fight and to give positive, let's say message about the contribution of migration to our societies and to our prosperity.
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Bloomberg Announcer
On September 25, Bloomberg Green returns to New York to bring together leaders from business, finance and government during Climate Week nyc. Join us for a half day of timely insights and high impact networking backed by Bloomberg's global journalism and data expertise. Together we'll explore strategies for future proofing business and communities from the planet's most pressing climate challenges. Supporting sponsor Susano learn more@BloombergLive.com greenny.