José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero 0, Fernando Torres 1
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By h.b. - Apr 4, 2008 - 7:34 PM
The Spanish Prime Minister needs to make some changes if he wants to occupy a greater space on the world stage

EDITORIAL COMMENT

The Spanish papers ended the week with the photo of a solitary José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at the NATO summit in Bucharest, sitting distant from the other government representatives gathered round President George W. Bush, who has his back to the Spanish Prime Minister.

It’s an interesting image, seized on by the right wing press here in Spain to illustrate the isolation, as they see it of Zapatero.

Bush and Zapatero have never got on, and the Moncloa put their foot in it telling the press ahead of the summit that the two leaders would be ‘meeting’ in Bucharest. That statement came after Bush rang Zapatero to congratulate him on his election victory, and showed no more than the U.S. protocol machine working well.

But the two leaders do not get on. There was little chance that they ever would when the Spanish Prime Minister’s first decision, in line with a manifesto promise and the wish of the Spanish people, was to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq. And now four years on, despite requests to do so, Zapatero has refused to increase the Spanish military contingent in Afghanistan.

Zapatero is not too worried about the disconnect with the world’s most powerful leader because Bush is a President in the twilight of his autumn. The Iraq war has proved to be Bush’s Achilles heel. The days of stimulating the domestic economy with military contracts and rallying the public behind a war effort are, it seems, in the past as the operations, both in Iraq and Afghanistan remain bogged down and the President’s popularity is lower than ever.
Zapatero on the other hand has just been re-elected.

All three candidates to replace Bush have said they will look to Spain, particularly for a link to Cuba, in the future, and so Zapatero can consider he will be in greater demand on the world stage soon. But he should also consider the value of language here. It was Bush speaking his now famous three words of Spanish, ‘¡Hola, Hola Felicidades!’ which highlighted the Spanish Prime Minister’s inability to speak English.

If he wants to improve his own, and in turn Spain’s, standing on the world stage, Zapatero could do far worse with his time than to learn English, so he can take his place at the informal chats at the other end of the table next time round.

If Fernando Torres, the Liverpool footballer who gave his first press conference in English this week, can do it in a few months, and at the same time prove to be an excellent ambassador for Spain, then why not Zapatero?

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