Spain takes over EU presidency

PanARMENIAN.Net - The six-month rotating post passed from Sweden to Spain at the stroke of midnight, and the country launched EU presidency stint in the helm with a spectacular sound and light show for New Year's Eve revelers gathered at the Puerta del Sol, one of Madrid's most emblematic plazas.



Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Spain's main goal as EU president is "to fight for economic recovery, for recovery from the crisis, and make Europe an economy that is more and more productive, more and more innovative and more and more sustainable."



Zapatero also said that under the new Treaty of Lisbon, which went into effect Dec. 1, the 27-member European Union must work to assert itself more on the global stage as it deals with powerhouses like the United States and China.

"We have to make Europe an ever stronger factor in the international context; a Europe that defends and extends the values of peace, cooperation, and dialogue among all peoples and nations," Zapatero said in a short video posted on a Web site the government has created to launch the presidency.