Hungary through Spanish eyes – Interview with the Spanish Ambassador

His Excellency José Ángel Lopez Jorrin, Ambassador of Spain, spoke to GLOBS Magazine in the imposing building of the Spanish Embassy. The relationship between Spain and Hungary goes back many centuries and has involved outstanding figures like Jolán Árpádházi, the Spanish participation in the retaking of Buda and Angel Sanz Brizr, who saved the lives of thousands of Hungarians during the Holocaust. Please read a GLOBS Magazine interview here:

Despite that, this year we are celebrating only the 40th anniversary of our diplomatic relations. What is the reason for that? What is the relationship between the two countries?

Historically we have not had real problems. Also unfortunately because our relations had been very low. We are celebrating this year the 40th of anniversary of the resumption of our diplomatic relations, which originally go as far as 1920. However, we had different political regimes, the socialist one here, the Franco regime in Spain that did not help at all to the contact. Only since 1977, we started meeting again. What unites us the most is that we are both members of the European Union, NATO and we share the same values based on democracy. We have governments with similar ideologies and they are close to each other and we are fully determined to push forward the European Union idea.

How much are the economies of the two countries linked? What is the foundation of the co-operation?

They are based basically on the agro-industry. The exchanges of food staples, investments in agriculture particularly from Spain to Hungary in the white sector in the trade of goods. But also, the automotive section in the industry that have come here to work. We have an important factory in Szentgotthárd, Veszprém and near Miskolc. There are companies which produce components for cars and others which are interested in the rehabilitation of historic buildings. Of course, our companies in infrastructure (roads, trains, bridges) are the most powerful in the world. So, there are lots of perspectives there. Spain is trying to take advantage of its comparative competitiveness in sectors like infrastructure and in certain aspects of technology. Our economic ties could be better but we have to catch up with time.

The economic crisis affected both our countries significantly. In 2012, the banking system in Spain had to be bailed out using state funds and an international aid package. The unemployment rate is 18.6% even now, but despite that, the economy is growing, and there was a 3.2% increase in GDP last year. How did Spain manage to overcome the crisis?

The economic crisis was very severe and very deep. It gave way to a lot of unemployment and losses of housing. This has changed the panorama and the government, which came in 2010, had to undergo very deep reforms in the labour market and the fiscal sector. Now we are growing the fastest way in the European Union. We are creating more than half a million jobs every year, which is more than 7000 jobs every day. Direct investments are coming so we are optimistic about the maintenance of this. By 2020, our aim is to be able to make 20 million people working. The crisis will have served in the end to change minds, to change structures, and to change many things that were maintaining a very old obsolete labour market. Now it is very much modernised and things will never go back to what they were so the new panorama in the economics is more based on dynamism, flexibility in work and innovation technology for small and medium enterprises for having a new impetus. The young entrepreneurs are growing by the day. The situation is not yet excellent but it is getting better. The export sector has helped us to overcome the crisis because the growth was concentrated very much on real estate on building houses that reached a point in which it was not so sustainable. So, that cracked down.

A new route of migration has formed; this year the number of people approaching Spain by sea has tripled, with 3,300 migrants arriving between January and April 2017, alone. How is Spain coping with the situation and what is the long term solution?

In the middle of the nineties Spain has received more than 5 or 6 million foreign workers. Not all of them legal, many illegal. From Eastern Europe, from Northern Africa from South America. That did not really pose a problem to the Spanish society. In 2004-2006, we had a big immigration route push to the Canary Islands and through the Strait of Gibraltar to Ceuta and Melilla. Thousands came at a certain point in the Canary Islands, which is a region of 2 million people, 80.000 people were arriving. At that moment there was not a big wave of immigration in Europe, it was mainly there because at that time there was no war in Libya and Syria. We had to deal that rather alone at that moment without any kind of help. And, what we did is to deploy a policy of closed contact with the countries, which were sending these migrants. Like creating mechanism of cooperation with the police providing means like equipment, tools, vehicles, even aircrafts to control that. The problem was very much ended. Of course we had to build a fence in Melilla and Ceuta, which are very small towns. But, the basic work was done through co-operation in the local authorities. This mechanism proved to be right in order to prevent big waves of immigration and the problem went away from us.