 Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, warm welcome to Prime Minister Sanchez. I see a lot of other European leaders here too wanting to hear the message from Prime Minister Sanchez. This is your fourth time or really your fifth time in Davos if you also include the digital Davos, and it's always a great pleasure to welcome you back, Prime Minister. I think throughout your term of office, you have always underlined the importance of EU matters and European corporations, and I think that has yielded clear results for Spain, and Spain has become even more an indispensable voice in European affairs, and standing up for European values in an era of depolarization. We've gathered here at the most challenging geopolitical and geoeconomic backdrop for decades, but there is also hope and silver linings. I think your government has shown that it's possible to revive growth even in challenging times and with reforms. And you've been putting Spain at the forefront of the twin transition, leading the country's digital transformation and steering it towards a more ecological, sensible future. So also in our reports, this is very much underlined. So Prime Minister, we look forward to continuing the debate and look forward to hear your message, and we're so happy to see you back physically here in Davos. So, Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you. Thank you, Borch, and good afternoon, everyone. Coming back to Davos is a sign of a much longer return to normalcy, as are the unmasked faces that I can see in the audience, yet today does not feel normal at all. That's it. The world is trembling. Many of the certainties that we had just three years ago have now vanished, and the new ones that are supposed to replace them have not emerged yet. Many citizens feel that something has broken and that the world is heading down a dark path. There should be no doubt that Putin is the main culprit of this terrible detour. He attacked the rules-based international order when the world was at such a low point in the midst of a terrible pandemic, an act of cruelty that speaks only to his own weakness. But perhaps, perhaps, we should put him aside for a moment and ask ourselves what about us? Haven't we also made mistakes? Are we doing everything that we can to protect that international order based on openness, rules, and collaboration that Putin is trying to undermine and destroy? Many international alliance have indeed strengthened it after a COVID and the invasion of Ukraine, particularly in the realm of defence. But are we not only seeing borders become more close to both people and goats and support for many multilateral organisations' faith? Are we doing enough to fight inequality and social injustice and to prevent further autocratic leaders like Putin from emerging? And what is equally important? Are we doing everything in our hands to tackle climate change, or are we using this crisis again as an excuse to slow down the green transition? I believe this to be the right moment and the right place to ask ourselves these questions and to realise that if the answer is no to any of them, then it means that we need to wake up, because there is much at stake, much more than the performance of our economies on the next quarter. Our present struggle is not only against Putin or the energy shortage, it is also against fear, mistrust, selfishness, xenophobia, and environmental disaster. And its outcome will define life in the West and beyond for decades to come. That is why I think that we should do more. We should do more. That we should use this opportunity to remake and strengthen our international sector, to redouble our commitment to our liberal and democratic values, and to craft new rules and new leadership that will allow us to effectively overcome the great challenges of our time, such as climate change and, as I said earlier, inequality. If not now, when? If not us, who? Since I am giving a speech, the only thing I can offer are words. But words can become something powerful. They can become promises. And here is mine. My country, Spain, will step up to the challenge. My country, my government, will stand in at the front line with those nations committed to fight for a world driven by social collaboration and environmental responsibility, and not by fragmentation and short-term needs. And Spain will do this by actively engaging in the four main threats that the world is currently facing. The first, the pandemic, which, unfortunately, is not over yet. Spain is the fifth country in the world that has donated more COVID vaccines, more than 70 million doses. And we will keep doing so until countries in the global south have the same access as those in the north. Second, we will continue to help Ukraine in its struggle for freedom. Last year, Spain created the largest humanitarian aid package in its history for the Ukrainian people, provided military support worth more than 300 million euros, and received more than 150,000 Ukrainian refugees. And this support will not stop until Putin withdraws. His troops and Ukraine become, once again, the independent and prosperous country that once was. So President Zelensky, we have your back. Third, international threat in which Spain will keep its commitment to the energy crisis. Last year, my country voluntarily reduced its electricity consumption by 7.5 percent compared to our historic average, and its consumption of natural gas by 23 percent. And we have contributed to the European security of supply by increasing exports of electricity and gas to the European Union to the limit of our capacity. We did so by doubling our imports of natural gas from overseas, and also by increasing our production of solar energy by 33 percent compared to the previous year, which makes us the fifth country in the world in wind energy production, and the eighth in renewable energy generation. Now we will continue to support our European allies, and we will do so by fostering greater interconnectivity, fair regulations, and clean energy. So this crisis serves to accelerate the green transition and not to delay it. In 2023, we will continue increasing our renewable energy production capacity in a significant way, and we will move forward in the construction of this first green hydrogen gas pipeline in the Mediterranean from Barcelona to Marseille. And we will start building two mega plants of green methanol that will create up to 85,000 jobs and fool the future vessels of the largest shipping company in the planet. So I believe that Spain has outstanding conditions for the development of this kind of energy. That is why we already host 20 percent of all green hydrogen projects worldwide. Finally, we will also increase our commitment to food security. As you know, the world faces a global hunger crisis of unprecedented proportions. In just two years, the number of people suffering famine or living at the brink of it has increased from 135 million in 53 countries to 345 million in 82 countries. And in many developing countries, people are close to a starvation due to shortage. And in many developed ones, many people are struggling to put good food on their table due to escalating prices. So we need to act. Despite its size, Spain is one of the largest food producing countries in the world and the first organic producer in the European Union. As such, we will continue to support the food supply chains. We will increase our agricultural production in balance with the environmental sustainability, and we will foster the development of modern agriculture in developing countries through a number of public and private cooperation projects. But of course, there is more we can do. Dear colleagues, the best way to make sure that Putin and his allies don't succeed in their attempt to destroy the liberal rules and principles that have driven the international order since the end of the Cold War is to redouble our support to those very rules and principles. Not only with words, but with actions. That is why Spain has and will continue to increase its support to multilateralism. In times of uncertainty and difficulty like the one we are living in, countries tend to close themselves to build walls and cut ties from the rest of the world in the hope that isolation will protect them. But it never does. It only makes them weaker. I am certain that the best way to protect Spain and Spanish citizens is to protect the rest of the world's population. That global problems can only be solved with global responses. And for this reason, since I became president, Spanish development aid has doubled from 2.2 billion euros per year to 4.4 billion euros per year. And in the future, it will continue to do so. Spain will go on to support developing countries and multilateral organizations with even greater strength and conviction that it did before, since now they are more necessary than ever. And let me say that this is not only what my government wants. This is what the Spanish citizens demand. Not in vain, according to the latest surveys, they are the most committed citizens in Europe to solidarity among nations. And for the same reasons, we will also continue to advocate for an open and interconnected economy. It is clear that we need to rethink global trade and supply chains. Recent events have reminded us that production costs should not be the only criteria considered by when deciding where to locate production change. There are other such as security and environmental sustainability. And I believe that Europe must recover certain strategic capabilities that it shouldn't have lost in the first place. Capabilities in key industries such as defense, health, energy or food. And for these reasons, this will be one of the main priorities of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union which will take place during the second half of this year. But for Spain, ensuring Europe's strategic autonomy does not mean fostering a return to a kind of autarchy or nationalism or economic fragmentation. On the contrary, Spain is the 16th largest trading nation in the world and the second most visited. Our country has prospered by opening up. And that is what we will continue to do in the future while we advocate at the same time for an European Union more connected with the rest of the world, particularly with our friends in Latin America. It seems that 2023 won't be a good year for the global economy. It will be marked by uncertainty, caused by the war, high inflation and the stagnation of some of its largest nations. But Spain will inevitably suffer some of the effects of this context, but it is also showing magnificent signs of resilience and strength. And this is what I want to share also with you. Because at this moment, Spain has the highest employment level of its history. It continues to grow above the average of the Eurozone and it registers the lowest inflation rate of the European Union. In fact, all international organizations agree that Spain will be one of the Western economies that will better navigate this period of uncertainty and economic slowdown. And they predict that it will continue to grow and advance in the path of convergence and progress alone, which it has been advancing for the last 30 years. We have a first class network of physical and digital infrastructures, a well-trained and highly educated workforce, a dynamic and cutting edge private sector and institutional stability. And we also have a plan of structural reforms underway that has already invested more than 43 billion euros from the next generation European funds. The global economy needs today more than ever reliable partners that can be trust and Spain will be one of them. Supporting economic openness and multilateralism will be crucial to protect the global order that Putin is trying to destroy. But there's one more crucial thing that needs to be done. We have to fight the rotten seeds that Putin has planted in our own countries. Let's not forget that Russian autocrat is not alone in his reactionary aspiration of fracturing the world and turning back the clock. He has some allies in Europe. Now they hide their sympathies and connections with Putin, but just some years ago they were visiting him and praising his ways. So we must prevent these political forces from reaching the institutions and destroying the European Union from the inside because the threat is very real, especially in those countries where these far-right forces have the support of mainstream conservative parties which are opening the doors of governments. So we will fight them back. With the same determination and conviction that the Ukrainians are fighting the Russian forces, but of course with different weapons, our weapons will be democracy, transparency and effective policies. And for me, this is the last point and this point is crucial because it's time to deliver. In most Western countries, inequality is rising and social mobility has stalled. Our citizens are losing poor-chasing power. They are struggling to find a decent job, to buy a proper house, to provide good education for their kids. To many of them, it is impossible to save for a well-deserved vacation, let alone to have a decent retirement or a private health insurance. Meanwhile, the number of billionaires keeps growing and large multinational companies keep increasing their benefits even at the backs of others. How can we ask our citizens to put up with inflation a little longer when some big companies pay zero taxes thanks to the fiscal paradise and the holes in the international regulations that we allow to exist? And I'm asking you, global elites, to help us change this situation. A hundred years ago, when the world was still ruled by all aristocracies, it would have been naive and pointless to do so. But things have changed. Today, many of you come from working and middle-class backgrounds, your leaders that have been democratically elected by your citizens, business people that made your own fortune through hard work. And that is why you know that the system is not fair. That is filled with injustice and inequality, that it is time to fix it. It is time that our economy and policies focus again in what really matters, the well-being of the people. Because if they cannot deliver that, what's the point of protecting them? My government is committed to this goal, March. Over the past ten months, we have devoted more than 45 billion euros of public phones to help citizens, companies, deal with the inflationary wave and the energy crisis. We have mobilized all the financial and legal resources of the state to protect them by cutting taxes, fostering free public transport, providing direct aid to SMEs and households, industries, and acting on the electricity and the housing markets. These measures have helped us to reduce inflation by five points in five months and to make this crisis a bit more bearable to many. Thus, we will continue to hold and expand them until prices moderate and decent life becomes affordable again. So my dear colleagues, the world is facing a major peril whose threat goes beyond the Russian gas supply or the fate of Ukraine. We all must act to the limits of our capacity, limits that should not be determined by the scale of our GDP or by all rules that we never approved. It should be set by the needs and rights of our citizens. Their welfare should be the measure of our success. So let's deliver. Thank you. Prime Minister, thank you for that very interesting overview and congratulations also on the good economic results in Spain. That's not the case all over the world. As you've seen, IMF and the World Bank do fear that one-third of the world can go into a recession. But listening to you on the transition that Spain has been going through, the labor reforms but also some other economic reforms has led now to one of the strongest growth in Europe. You're the 16th largest exporter in the world. Are there things in your reform agenda that can be applicable also for other nations where they can learn? Because sometimes, of course, you also hear that the reforms can then make the country less competitive. But would you have shown by some of these reforms that it has led to growth and more people employed? Thank you. Thank you. Well, most of these reforms, 190 reforms that we have delivered so far during the last three years, by the way, with the coalition government with minority support in the parliament, which is something I think remarkable for the outcome of this coalition government, the first experience at the central level in our democratic history, the recent democratic history. But well, most of these reforms have been agreed with the European Commission, has been for many years included in what the commission calls or named the country-specific recommendation. So it is important that these reforms are delivered, but it's also very important these reforms are delivered with the social recognition and the social agreements of the key actors. So for instance, the labor reform, we delivered with the agreement of the business administration and the trade union, which it never happened over the last 40 years. That's like squaring a circle. Exactly, yes. But we are also doing that in other important reforms, such as the education reform or the vocational training reform and recently the university reform that we are about to end before the national parliament. Because I looked at unemployment numbers, they've gone quite considerably down. A lot of more people employed. Is the youth unemployment challenge that you were faced with some years ago, would you say that it's solved or is it now on the European level? Because it used to be much higher. It is not solved yet. Of course, if you compare our unemployment rates with the rest of the European Union, of course, it's high. So it's still unacceptable, but we are on the way to resolve one of our structural problems, which is youth unemployment. But it's not only important, indeed it is, that we are creating jobs and it's also the quality of those jobs. One figure that to me was very, very interesting is that since we implement policies that move the workers from the shadow economy to formal economy, we have reduced by half a million the structural unemployment in Spain in just less than two years. And these kind of reforms together or along with the labor reform and other reforms that we are, you know, approving, such as the educational system, the vocational training system, the university system, or the science law or the startup law to attract and retain talent. I think that we are modernizing the Spanish economy in a way that perhaps didn't happen in the last 20 to 30 years. Thank you. Moving up in the village. And I just saw that you have increased the people on permanent contracts in the labor market with 200 percent. So what you're saying is that if you want to hire people, you should also be in a situation where you're so profitable that you can pay people decent salaries and have contracts. One of our major lags and problems, of course, is always productivity, labor productivity. And this also has been linked to temporary and precariousness in our country. So that is why I think it's important this change as well as delivering on gender equality regarding salaries and working conditions, minimum wage, as you mentioned before, and of course recognizing labor rights for workers in the digital platforms. We were pioneering this kind of debate within the European Union. I also heard your prime minister say that you're still concerned with populist movements in Europe. You mentioned that there are still key players that don't necessarily stick to what is at the core of the values you are complying with and what you are sticking to. We had elections in France, we had elections in Italy. Do you think this trend has turned due to what we've seen unfolding in Ukraine now or we should not be complacent about this? I think that we cannot be complacent about it. I think that the main risk is that conservative parties open the doors of governments to these far-right parties. And this is something that goes against the European Union. Any examples you would like to share with us? Well, I think it's important to keep the unity. I think the biggest lesson that we can take from the first pandemic and now this terrible war in Ukraine and its implication for the European Union as a whole is the importance of unity. And unity is not only a word in order to react to things that happen abroad, but unity also in a way to face common challenges. So for instance, energy. This energy crisis cannot be used by some to slow down their climate commitments, but to align our responses to this biggest challenge, which is climate change. And this is what we are doing in Spain. We've been, as you know quite well, very vocal since the beginning of the war, even before, asking the Commission to reform. And it was a matter of debate last year in Davos with Timmermans, Commission of Timmermans, to reform the electricity market. We came out with this Iberian solution that allowed us to reduce inflation in the Iberian Peninsula, but we also table this idea of central purchase of gas to use our purchase power or of course, you know, trying as we propose to the rest of member states and European Commission to the couple gas prices from electricity prices. This is the way that we can defend, of course, our households, SMEs and industries and of course, competitiveness. It was really interesting, the remarks made by Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Commission. I completely aligned with her view this morning. I think it's important that we take seriously what the Biden administration is doing with this inflation reduction act. I think that Europe must react and do some homework, review our state rules, aid to renew our industrial policy. And for that, I think it's going to be crucial that the Spanish Presidency second semester of the year. We will be very focused on the open and strategic autonomy. This industry policy is obviously back in the sense that, of course, it is a positive thing, I guess, that the U.S. is now also trying to take a lead on the decarbonization. I think the challenge is probably that 300 million billion, sorry, 300 billion U.S. dollars to sectors that want to develop this can also be so attractive that it attracts investments to the U.S. that could have been in Europe. But what is then the European response? Is it then to match that or is it to say that this is state subsidies? So we need to negotiate and to reach an agreement with the U.S. administration, because politically I think it's important that, after especially the war, Western countries, Western allies, and Atlantic relations get closer and we don't split and divide ourselves. Second because I think that it's important that Europe review its internal industrial policies, competition policy, or, as I said earlier, the state aid rules, that in a way doesn't fit to the new reality, especially after the pandemic and the war. So I think that it's important to reach that agreement with the U.S. administration to get closer in this transatlantic relation, but on the other hand, there's some homework to do. And we already send our proposals to the Commission regarding the electric market, regarding the review of the state aid rules. And we will do as we have been doing over the last years in constructive, proposing different measures that at the end of the day, what we want to reach is stronger Europe and a much more integrated Europe, because at the end of the day, these are common challenges that need common responses. You also mentioned the importance of this strategic autonomy, but going back to the U.S. IRI plan that's also passed by the Congress, so maybe it's hard to see that the administration can walk back on some of this. But it's, of course, it's money that is put out there for semiconductors, developments, carbon capture and storage. It's about hydrogen and etc. That's what you're saying, is that Europe can always match that with industry policy if there is a political will. So take, you know, into consideration this figure, only 10 percent of the chips produced worldwide are produced in Europe. So we need to take some lessons from the past, mistakes that we committed, as I mentioned earlier in my remarks, and to develop this idea of an open, and I remark open, a strategic autonomy, because we need that, defense, health, food, or this new industry of chips and semiconductors, because when you speak with the CEOs of these global companies, what they tell you is that there's an expectation of doubling the demand of semiconductors and chips also in Europe. So I think that it's crucial for all of us to have this new industrial policy and to develop this idea of the strategic autonomy. And by the way, I think it's also very important for Europe to look abroad and to focus, of course, and keep this unity along with the U.S. administration, but also why not with Africa and Latin America, and this is going to be one of my goals, to have this bilateral summit together with Latin American and Caribbean countries, and also with the southern neighborhood countries in the Mediterranean. And of course, since the president of Serbia is here, a good friend, we will also host and convene in Granada this very important meeting of the European political community, which I think is a very good idea to share strategies, reflections, and to create synergies among different European countries. So I think that Europe has a lot of opportunities in these very difficult moments, but we need to be ambitious, and we need to, as I said earlier, to wake up and deliver. No, I see President Alex Sander, which is listening very carefully here on the first row. No, thank you very much, Prime Minister. I would have liked the conversation to continue. You know, my colleagues are sending over, it has to come to an end, and you should always end when people still want it to continue. And I think we are still there. Answer is very, very thoughtful. Thank you for your leadership, and very privileged to have you back in Davos. Thank you. Prime Minister. Thank you.