Transcripts For ALJAZ Arancha Gonzalez Laya 20240713

All. The atmosphere. Its been over a month since covert 19 was declared a pandemic. More than 120000 people have died and more than 2000000 are infected worldwide. The Health Emergency has also affected the Global Economy and diplomacy one of the countries that has been hardest hit by the pandemic is spain. Its had more than 80000 deaths despite the weeks long government imposed lockdown its already weak economy has declined further. And despite concerns by the World Health Organization of workers unions and opposition leaders the Spanish Government has announced a partial lifting of the restrictions. Prime minister Petro Sanchez has asked the European Union for help to tackle the economic fallout. Again along with italy france and other e. U. Nations want to share the cost of the crisis through euro bonds that all you nations will have to pay off. But countries including germany in the netherlands opposed that plan saying it will be a burden on their taxpayers. In an article published by newspapers across europe Prime Minister sanchez warned that failing to respond with unwavering solidarity could push the European Union to fall apart. So how will spain overcome the challenges ahead and will it succeed in its effort to unify the response the Spanish Foreign minister im sure gonzalez talks to aljazeera. The Spanish Foreign minister im sure gonzales liath thank you for talking to aljazeera at that share. For mr gonzales let me start by asking you about the fact that spain has begun easing some of the coronavirus lockdown measures how many people are going back to work isnt it too soon to be doing so. So let me be very clear we havent yet started deescalating the confinement measures that we to. The beginning of february to fight coronavirus what we have done these go back to where we where 2 and a half weeks ago in terms of letting workers go back to work but only those that do teleworking. This is essentially as we have seen that the virus is entering into a phase of step illustration citizens remain confined in their homes and can only go out. To perform work that cannot be done through teleworking or to buy their food or their medicines so we remain at that moment in a lockdown and state of alarm because we have not yet reached a situation where we can start the escalating with safety and security for our people and when would you reach that point when you can start deescalating safely. So we dont plan on with. 3 months ahead we are doing this almost on a daily basis on a weekly basis we are evaluating the situation were looking at the figures we are listening to the recumbent asians we get from the Health Experts with the they are internationally from the World Health Organization from our own ones from the european. Health expert because what we have to do is start opening up a start returning to a new normal once we know that citizens will be safe because otherwise we would have lost all the efforts that this if this ends in an extraordinary effort of citizenship have achieved by remaining a home to avoid contagion you mention the World Health Organizations let me just follow up because w. H. O. Is actually raised concerns about the lifting about the easing of some of these restrictions by spain and by other Member States and said that this could lead to a deadly resurgence of the infection does that worry you. Know because what we are doing is exactly what the World Health Organization is saying what the World Health Organization said is do not leave prematurely. Measures that have been taken to prevent contact this is precisely where we are today we are not lifting the measures that keep 47000000 spaniards in their homes precisely because we are taking the advice that were getting from the World Health Organization very very seriously or its been announced the Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez will Ask Parliament next week to extend emergency measures until may 11th are you confident that this will happen well again we dont take bets i dont think this is the time for taking bets or for speculating what we have always told our citizens. And this has been consistent is that we will be guided by the recumbent patients we get from the Health Experts 1st is precisely what we are doing what we have seen up until now is that by following their advice weve been able to manage the pandemic that we have entered into a face of stablish sation we have seen the number of infected people decrease dramatically we have seen the number of recovered people increase dramatically we have seen our Health Care System our hospitals be less burdened by new infected citizens we have seen our intensive care units be less burdened by new patients this is what we have achieved by being very careful this is what we guide the next the steps and if we need to Ask Parliament for another extension of the state of alarm we will do so in the best interest of our citizens for mr gonzalez u. S. President donald trump has announced that the u. S. Will suspend payments to the World Health Organization as spain has been one of the hardest hit countries by the coronavirus pandemic whats your reaction to that. Well we dont think that we should weaken the World Health Organization if anything this endemic hostile to us that this is very important to strengthen the World Health Organization to strengthen the ability of the Global Community to respond to the pandemic to strengthen the ability of the World Health Organization to a leg data to commendations to provide with solid advice we need to mall World Health Organization not less the World Health Organization and let me take the opportunity to praise the incredible work that its director general doc that their dress has been performing with a very steady hand at the very difficult moment for the Global Community but we will have a time and a moment to talk about how to strengthen the World Health Organization for now we should not get distracted what we should do is fight depend demick strongly so that we can restart the engines of our economy and then go back to strengthening also the capacity of the International Community to respond to them mics like this one this will not be the last one so we need to be better prepared for the next one and i think the World Health Organization will be an important part of that when you speak about being better prepared Going Forward and fighting the pandemic strongly we must talk about the role of Health Care Workers because the number of Health Care Workers whove been infected with cold 19 in spain is higher than in any other country in the world what is being done right now by the government to better protect them to provide them with the kind of equipment that they need to help people and to also combat giving themselves. Yeah let me 1st tell you that our biggest assett whether its in spain or in any other country are Health Care Workers and our biggest asset is. Our Health Care System and its why does this why in our view one of the things we need to do moving forward is look into strengthening even more of the capacity of our public Health Care Systems to respond to shocks like this one in spain weve gone through an unprecedented shock to our Health Care System and by and large with a lot of efforts from our workers with a lot of efforts on the part of everybody within the Health Care Community we are coming out of this shock but weve done that by obviously providing the necessary means to the Health Care Workers in spain which is that these centralized country both the Central Government and all the regions have worked to provide the Health Care Workers with their best means but i have to tell you that this has been an unprecedented move and therefore we have seen an unprecedented impact also on our Health Care Workers this is why you know of you moving forward we need to look very carefully at how we prepare for the next next pandemic being humbled about what went right and what went wrong in this one not only in spain but around the world drawing the lessons in putting this in terms of public investments in the future you mentioned that spain is decentralized country i want to ask you more specifically about that the fact that spain has 17 autonomous regions all with Different Health care models how much does that complicate the response to cope at night too. Did this into a lie sation in this pain is a function of wanting to bring the Healthcare System closer to the citizens so i think the there is no structural issue what do we have to do and this is what we have found in situations like this one. And again with a model that is not very different from the Health Care System and did this into other countries like germany which also has devolved responsibilities to the regions what we had to do at the beginning is coordinate better this 17 models and we got when we got to the hardest part of managing the pandemic we took an extra step of ensuring that the government would have control Central Control Central Command but with the centralized action for example most communities were free to purchase materials were free to implement their protocols in their best way to organize their hospitals in the in the way they thought was the best but with the Central Control and command which was the ministry of health its again its its a test in a way its the 1st time we test such a model and i think what we have found is the importance of having this one place where the decisions are taken in a dialogue with the communities but with that these centralized implementation of these measures to bring them closer to our citizens again this is probably another element that we will have to look into when it is over the Prime Minister made very clear and promised at the beginning of this crisis a commission in the parliament to evaluate the impact of the measures taken what went right when were wrong so this probably will be one of these areas were. Well have to look into it youre talking about looking into where things went right where things went wrong the Prime Minister has been severely criticized for not prohibiting mass gathering sooner and for not stockpiling medical equipment once it was obvious the cases were increasing in italy why werent these measures taken sooner we again from the humility we all need to exercise in analyzing how we manage the crisis what were right and one where and theres this. In spain as these in any other country in the world because i see this being part of pretty much the domestic debate in every country in our country we have to be humble in the humbleness of this discussion we have to also put a number of facts on the table for example 1st fact spain has been following the recommendations every time that emanated from the world have organization from the European Center for the control of pandemics and from our own experts and every time the measures their recommendations were issued measures were taken by the Spanish Government including full beading gatherings the recombination was to forbid gatherings of the like to play in the weeks before we took the state of alarm so if you wish would we have always done in spain is anchor the decisions we have taken on the basis of scientific recommendations and advice where we are right were we wrong in my view we will have time to discuss this and we will have to do this humbly but we should start does this question i think from the facts the fact is that we followed the advice did we follow the advice was the advice soon enough probably not. Were we countries of this world and in particular developed economies conscious of the depth and the lost city of transmission of the virus early enough probably not and this is something that we collectively will have to look into we want to do this in a humble manner but also with the. You know starting from what we did and what we did again is our decisions on the recommendations we got every time 8 International Womens day there was a gathering of around 120000 people that was allowed to take place in madrid to celebrate International Womens day there were already people mourning that that gathering should not take place whether or not it was happening in other countries in the region and yet it was allowed to go on this happened after the 1st cluster of coronavirus cases was discovered in spain why was that particular gathering allowed to go on so again to decide whether its not that particular gathering but the gatherings that took place around that weekend which was International Womens day which saw a Major Political rally by one of the extreme right parties in spain which saw football matches which saw sports activities which saw religious gatherings why did all these gatherings happen is because when we look at the recommendations we got we were not in the zone that was considered to be high risk zone now where these recommendations Strong Enough probably not but its easy to say they know that we have all the information that we have its difficult to take those measures when we have the information that we have and let me also be very clear this is one of the problems we have had is that we did not know with enough depth. Of knowledge im neither us nor italy nor france or germany or the us or the u. K. That the virus was traveling us fast as we know know that the virus was traveling and that its degree of contagion was asked how as we now know its contagious so on hindsight its very easy to make these kind of rich this kind of conclusions when youre in the middle of this let me tell you that we buy and public gatherings both with less affected people unless the people in spain that other countries that followed us did we do right lets lets look into that again with a lot of how. But lets also not get too hasty conclusions based on one event and only one event because that also would not serve us in the future to be better prepared for mr gonzales you wrote recently in the Washington Post that as we fight the virus in spain we understand that our economic social and Health Security are all dependent on increased collaboration with our european neighbors you also wrote in the same piece that we need unprecedented global coordination to jumpstart the engines of our of our economies so the shock is a short lived as possible and no one is left behind are you now seeing that collaboration with your e. U. Neighbors and are you seeing it within the Global Community. I think what were seeing at least at the european level is weve learned we seem to have learned the lessons from the last crisis which was the 2008 crisis we are moving faster we are moving in a more coordinated manner and we are moving to protect jobs all jobs which was one of the lessons we take from the 2008 crisis where we left many people behind the 1st time with learned the lesson now the response in europe has Different Actors some of these actors have already moved the European Central bank the European Commission some of the responses in the at the european level are short to medium term like the one we saw last week in the euro group but some will require and this is where we are focused now having a plan to restart the economies of europe. But also in a very robust manner versus where we still need a bit more work in order to give us selves the means to exit the recession in which all our economies will be in 2020 as we have heard from the International Monetary fund at the global level i think there is space to do more space to do this in a more coordinated manner one again one of the other lessons we draw from the 2008 crisis is that when youve got a Global Crisis and this is what we have today as a recession in 2024 the world irrespective of where you are irrespective of how big or small you are irrespective of whether you are in the north or in the south it requires thinker nicely synchronizing their responses it requires investing in greater coordination i know its not very fashionable to talk about these days where some seem to be pursuing more National Responses but lesson here. 3 lessons from the 2008 crisis we will be better off and we will exit faster if we do this in a more coordinated manner Unicredit Research suggests that spain is set to suffer more from the crisis in any other european economy unemployment spain was already at 40 percent before this crisis 800000 people have lost their jobs as a result you know madrid is now pushing for mutualization of debt and these e. U. Backed corona bonds but Northern European countries are resisting this where is European Solidarity at this time so again. The house taken its place in the measures that have been greek for the short term where we need to work a little bit more is in the medium to long term response and this is in 2 pieces 1st the budget for the next 7 years of the European Union the budget that means that we will give ourselves. To invest in priorities that make more sense cost coronavirus and 2nd in the Recovery Plan economic and social Recovery Plan where we need to probably invest together in mutual manner mutual izing the investments not neutralizing that but neutralizing our investment in the future for us is why we are European Union this is where we think with our we are in the north or in the south in the story in the west of europe its europe that needs to exit the crisis its europe that needs to strengthen its internal market and its ability to be a Global Player and for that its europe that needs to invest in a mutual thats what we are pushing for and by the way spain is not the only one this is what 9 leaders in europe are pushing for France Italy Spain luxembourg. Portugal greece. Slovenia arland thats not a small part of europe and i am sure that this is shared by others so we hope to see this budget on really covering. That means a great a collective investment a common investment by the european Member States in a common recovery informers are going on as there are opposition politicians and there are a number of Regional Governments that of also criticize the easing of restrictions or the potential easing of lockdown restrictions at this time. Whos the president of the Regional Government of catalonia and said returning people to work right now was irresponsible and reckless your response to that well i think we have a healthy debate in spain with our differing regions its part of them a correct a game we are a democrat the country in a democracy you got to have the ability to express your opinion and they got the land president expresses his opinion and thats fine with that but at the end of the day once we have heard the opinion of everybody we need a common plan and thats where the government comes into place the Prime Minister of spain speaks with the president s of the autonomous communities with the regions every week he dialogues with them he listens to their views they put their ideas on that they will and at the end of the day there is a plan and is the plan that is executed like in any democracy a space for the space for debate including for. Opposing certain measures but at the end of the day a plan that needs to be executed because at the end of the day this virus knows no borders and we will not win this battle in the space unless we ensure that each and every one of our citizens is in the safe zone so weve spoken about the extension or potential extension of emergency measures in spain but i want to also ask you about the potential extension of border closures and travel restrictions because the e. U. Is right. Amended that those external border closures remain in place until may 15th i believe thats the date that theyve mentioned is spain going to adhere to that as well where spain believes that when you live in an integrated zone like the European Union the lifting of borders has to be done enough kwartin native manner in a coherent manner we share a common external border because we are part of the schengen space and this means that we need to the sky and agree what we do with our external borders together all European Union Member States we also half to discuss and agree what we do with our internal borders within this the space within the Schengen Area this is why we support the call by the European Commission when the Commission Says we need to do this in a coordinated manner that working all of us together to get to a common response understanding that what we are learning also as we look at how the virus is behaving. Until we are all safe and nobody will be safe for mr gonzalez i really appreciate your time today thanks for taking the time we know that youre dealing with a lot best of luck to you and you and to everybody in spain thank you very. Same to legally know someone you must be in the. Moment when their footsteps as they watch their way in the what. Aljazeera and steve. Snow journeys. Inspiring stories of people persevering on their chosen path. Witness documentaries on aljazeera. People have come to expect a lot from aljazeera over the years its the reporting the commitment to one the reporter places the commitment to the human story. But its also the idea of challenging those in power if a politician comes on this channel they will be challenged and thats what people expect of us they want the questions answered. That is what weve always something thats what we will continue to do. As the world fights the corona pandemic were learning more about this every day the new patent your new join our Global Community. How we come together to fight answering your questions can i get on with you trying to say directly that coming on on you tube as youre saying im concerned about the frontline phone i think are a quiet and not keeping you up to date and weve seen countries retreat back and beaten back to the stream on 00. 0 am or intender in on the top stories are now jazeera the British Government has denied reports that it wasted time and botched its response to the coronavirus pandemic with Prime Minister Abbas Johnson directly to blame a damning report in the sunday Times Newspaper says he ignored scientists warnings and skipped 5 emergency meetings as the crisis group says the total of u. K. Deaths pushed past 16000 children and reports from around the accusations of complacency a misjudgment to spread across 4 pages the headline a damning assessment of god