MADRID (AFP) — Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on Saturday hailed Spain's participation in next week's financial summit in Washington, saying it was recognition of his country's economic weight.
Spain, the world's eighth largest economy, will join Britain, France, Germany and Italy among European representatives at the G20 summit, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday it could have one of two seats allotted to Paris.
Zapatero, speaking at a press conference, thanked Sarkozy and US President George W. Bush for supporting Spain's claim to take part, which he called a first step towards the country regularly participating in world economic forums.
"We have made up for lost time. When the international system was conceived (at the end of the Second World War) Spain was absent because we were living under a dictatorship," he said.
"We have achieved a first step of special importance. Now it is a question of consolidating this first recognition by the international community," he said.
Zapatero stressed the need for the summit to reconsider the leadership roles assigned to the various groupings of world economic powers such as the G8 or G20 and said Madrid would advocate high standards of transparence and supervision for the international financial system at the Washington meeting.
He added that Spain would participate at the same level as other countries attending, and not just take up the space accorded by France.
France was given two seats, one in its own right and one as the current president of the European Union, but Sarkozy said it was "not a problem" for Spain to take one of them.
Sarkozy also wants to see the Netherlands attend the Washington gathering.
Zapatero said he would prepare for the meeting by having talks with Spanish economic and political leaders, including the head of the right-wing opposition, Mariano Rajoy.
Spanish newspapers however said Saturday that Zapatero had only won "half a victory" in securing a seat at the Washington meet.
They noted that Madrid would be excluded from the G20 again once France's term at the head of the EU ends in December.
Created in 1999, the Group of 20 accounts for 85 percent of the world economy and about two-thirds of the world's population.
It comprises the seven major industrialised nations -- Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Germany and the United States -- and Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey.
It also includes the 27-nation European Union, of which both Spain and the Netherlands are members.
Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 began a two-day conference Saturday in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to lay the groundwork for the Washington summit.
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