José María Aznar Statement

National Convention of the Popular Party ‘España en libertad’

Madrid, 19.01.2019

Thank you very much, Tono, for your presentation and congratulations on the work you have been doing in the European Popular Party. Your task in Europe has always been a source of satisfaction for the PP and a guarantee of cohesion and the solidity of that great political force that we helped to create. I would like to expressly acknowledge this great work.

A very affectionate greeting to our guests who have participated or are going to participate in this Convention. To Manfred Weber, our candidate to preside over the European Commission after the next elections. To Antonio Tajani, a great friend, a great politician, a great European who has always been on 's side. Thank you, Antonio. We are delighted that you are with us.

I would also like to extend my greetings to all those who are contributing their speeches to this Convention. Personalities such as Mario Vargas Llosa, and not just him, who always guide us and enrich our debates. To our friends in , Venezuela and Nicaragua. Here we share their cause and we will continue to fight so that freedom and dignity may return to those peoples that we feel as part of us. Let me also extend a very special greeting to those who bring to this Convention the voice of the victims of terrorism, a voice we feel very present in our memory despite their absence. They were indispensable and our commitment to them and their sacrifice remains indeclinable.

And many thanks to all of you for being here and listening to me.

I would like to greet you all in this Convention, which is a new step on this party's path. A new step, but a very important step, a great step forward. A decisive step for the future.

I am convinced that when we remember these days in the future, we will realise the importance of what you are doing.

These months have been demanding and so will be those to come.

But the Popular Party has given an example of serenity and responsibility when it has had to enter into the new time indicated by Pablo Casado’s leadership.

When he was running for the presidency of the party, Pablo Casado said something that is worth remembering: "if I win, nobody loses".

This party has been forged in very difficult moments, but it has never been built on the defeat of anyone. And if anyone has ever been tempted to act differently, the result has been error and failure.

Nothing worthwhile can be built by counting defeats but by counting friends and allies. Nothing worthwhile has been done by dividing but by building support.

That is why in the Congress, last July, the PP gave an example of renewal that is also an example of integration and support‐building.

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José María Aznar Statement

A renewal that, by the way, reaches all of us. And this is what it is: look, you have been put on a diet: just one former president per day.

This example of renewal, integration and support‐building obliges us to a commitment.

For this reason, we must commit ourselves to updating and strengthening this great project in which liberals, conservatives, Christian Democrats, women and men, young and old have coexisted, with benefits for Spain.

We must update and strengthen this project which is linked to the best European humanist tradition; which claims its values in the individual, in the family and in society; in work and education, in the dignity of all and in respect for their freedom.

This project has contributed to making Europe, with its problems and uncertainties, the best Europe there has ever been.

Let us not renounce this coexistence; let us not renounce plurality. On the contrary, let us affirm it.

Let us open the doors of that common house even more because that is the identity of the Popular Party; that is what we wanted it to be and what it still is.

Let us affirm our majority vocation.

Let us make the great majority of Spaniards who live and work hard in their work feel represented in the Popular Party; let us make them feel that they want new opportunities, that they have the right to see their efforts recognized and their aspirations valued.

A majority of Spaniards who, in uncertain times, believe in their country and trust its capacity. Men and women who contribute with their work and their taxes; who strive to carry out their personal and family projects; citizens who every day write the history that matters in a Nation, the history that matters in Spain.

We have to listen to all of them. With attention, with humility, with respect. I'm sure they tell us things we need to hear, even if we don't like some of them. What's more, we have to listen, above all, to those things.

Because only if we listen to them will we be able to do things better.

Only if we listen to them will we be able to ask them to listen to us.

The convention is going to be a success. It is going to be a success for the Popular Party. It has to be a success for Spain.

Almost 30 years ago, precisely in Seville, this party, our party, met under a compromise: "Centred on Freedom". Today, we meet under a slogan that claims: "Spain in Freedom".

There is not much difference. We were right then, and we are right now to commit ourselves to unity, to Spain and to Freedom. We were right to address that great central current of society that forms the backbone of it.

And that does not mean that we are looking back.

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It means that we do not leave behind what identifies us as the great integrating political force that has brought progress and stability to Spain;

which has brought growth and employment;

which has fought for freedom without sparing sacrifices;

which has won a place of relevance for Spain in Europe and in the world;

which always and at all times defended the integrity of our Nation;

which has always been able to offer security and confidence to the Spaniards when the horizon was dark and uncertain.

We have made decisions even at the risk of making mistakes and we have also made mistakes, but that is to govern.

We have been able to do some things better, no doubt.

But we have always been right in what is important and in much more than what is important.

Yes, we know what it is to govern.

That is why we are far from strident political fashions, we are far from the shouting of troublemakers and the arrogance of simplists.

We are not ‐and have never been‐ spectators of Spain's problems, but we have set foot on the ground to resolve them.

In the face of problems, we have not remained in lament or indignation: we have proposed solutions.

My dear Popular Party colleagues,

We were born to build support and integrate.

That is why we prefer the effort of living together to create a great majority to the comfort of the minority. Because only together and only many of us will be able to do what Spain needs.

We defend the Constitution in its letter and spirit, and we defend it all.

We defend it as the best coexistence agreement in which all Spaniards can fit.

We defend the Nation because the Nation is the freedom of the citizens protected by law; it is the community of free men and women united by valuable bonds of solidarity, history and affection.

That is why we do not accept that the destiny of the Constitution has to depend on those who want to break it.

And this is not just the past. It is a present commitment that is still very much alive in many administrations, in many autonomous and municipal governments.

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José María Aznar Statement

It is a commitment that is still alive in the militants, in the sympathizers and voters of the Popular Party.

It is a commitment for the future that once again makes history in Andalusia. Congratulations and encouragement to those who have made change possible there.

Spain is a story of a unique success. That's why some people try so hard to twist it. Spain is a great historical reality that 40 years ago knew how to find the path of reconciliation and harmony and through that channel our future must flow. And that must be so, even if some try to revive ghosts of the past and others threaten with breaking the nation.

Spain is a full democracy. And that's why some try so hard to denigrate it. But they cannot hide either the democratic quality of our country or the good sense of its society.

Spain has the capacity to look to the future with confidence. And that is why some people are making such an effort to frustrate that future.

Today that success story is under threat. It is threatened by the same people who threaten our unity; by those who want to go back to reconciliation and harmony; by those who conspire against the interests of all Spaniards; by those who want to put an end to our possibilities for the future and our ability to face it successfully.

Let no one be deceived. Spain has set itself an existential challenge. And we must respond to this challenge calmly but firmly. We must respond with votes.

I don't want to leave anything to interpretation. The votes that Spain needs in order to successfully respond to this challenge against its historical continuity and against its future are the votes which should go to the Partido Popular and which, from now on, I am asking for the Partido Popular.

My dear Popular Party colleagues,

This Party has the responsibility to lead, to promote, to call for political change in the face of those who bet on Spain's failure and in the face of those who receive their support.

A change against those who bet on the failure of national reconciliation.

Against those who bet on the failure of the pact of democratic coexistence that we embody in the Constitution.

A clear political change against those who bet on a dwarfed Spain, a broken and confronted Catalonia and a sick Europe.

Surely you remember when the Socialists dismissed their secretary general because, as they said ‐I insist, they said‐ their secretary general sought pacts with those who wanted to break Spain.

Well, that's exactly what's happening. And if this is all the left can offer, then change must be called for urgently.

How long can we abide a government that lets itself to be treated as a foreigner at bilateral summits in an autonomous community?

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How long do we have to abide for Catalan separatism to constantly threaten us through contempt, disobedience to the law and disloyalty?

How long and in the name of what do we have to abide separatism using the institutions of all against citizens who oppose secession and claim their rights?

How long will we have to wait for the coup d'état, the coup against the Constitution and democracy to be dismantled; how long will we have to wait for their plots to be dismantled and for the institutions of Catalonia to be guaranteed to serve all Catalans?

We have come to a point that was almost impossible to imagine: a government that makes the general state budget dependent on a fugitive from justice and a preventive prisoner for rebellion. It is simply unimaginable, but it is real.

That is not politics. That is to degrade politics.

That is not dialogue. That is surrendering democracy and betraying the most elementary commitment of a ruler.

That is not negotiating. It is an insult to the Spanish people and to democracy.

I was telling you earlier that some time ago, the Socialists dismissed their secretary general. For the same reasons that the Socialists did it, for exactly the same reasons, today, that secretary general has to be democratically dismissed by the citizens at the polls. I make my own the reasons that led the Socialists to dismiss the current President of the Government.

Spain needs change. And the responsibility of the PP is essential.

I want to be respectful to everyone. But Andalusia has shown two things: the PP has not been enough for change. But without the PP it is certain that change would not have taken place. And I add: without the strong leadership of the PP, change will not happen.

The PP, as we have seen, is the insurance of change.

Only the PP and a strong PP guarantee change.

Not a potential change.

Not a change with a confusing objective, because what has to be changed is the government, not the Constitution.

Let us not ask for the vote of fear. The vote that the PP has to ask for is the vote of hope and patriotism. Let us summon the Spaniards to take up again a great project of success for our Nation which is the success to which it can and must aspire.

That task is really impenetrable and will fall largely on Pablo Casado. Pablo had the courage and the wisdom to step forward when the party needed it and we know that he will not step back from the responsibility that the Popular Party has placed on his shoulders.

Almost 30 years ago, a 37‐year‐old boy ‐the same age as Pablo Casado‐ became president of the Popular Party. That young man ‐like Pablo Casado‐ came from Ávila. But unlike that young man of 30 years ago, today's young man, Pablo Casado, is much smarter and knows much more about politics.

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Pablo: none of your predecessors had it so difficult and look how difficult things have always been for the PP.

That is why I want you to know, and for everyone to know, my confidence that you will know how to respond to this great commitment.

I believe that not only do we have a great president in the Popular Party, we have a great leader, a leader without tutelage.

I believe we have a man who can, wants and knows how to unite and build support.

And I am sure that, as is already happening, more and more Spaniards will recognize in Pablo Casado the best reason to find their place again in this great common house built on the two pillars of our past and our future: Spain and freedom.

Long live Spain!

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