Preparations begin for the 2nd Spain-France Dialogue Forum in Paris

Alberto Navarro and Pierre Jouyet, the Secretaries of State for European Affairs of Spain and France, together with Francisco Villa, Spain's ambassador to France, took part in the meeting organised in preparation for the 2nd Spain-France Dialogue Forum, an event that is jointly organised by the CIDOB Foundation and the French company VEOLIA Environnement, and which this year will be held in Paris. 

The meeting was also attended by more than 40 leading French and Spanish representatives from the worlds of science, culture, business, journalism, politics and academia. At the meeting, the participants analysed the evolution of the Forum's activity since it was first held in 2006, as well as preparing for the next general meeting which will be held on 10 January 2008 in Paris, in parallel with the Bilateral Summit Meeting ─ the first since Nicolas Sarkozy was elected to the French Presidency. The participants debated three issues deemed to be of key importance to the bilateral relations of the two countries. These were, firstly, the interconnection of infrastructures, a subject on which the participants stressed an urgent need to advance with certain infrastructures, particularly the railways. However, they also discussed the need to improve the electricity interconnections between Spain and France, and the possibility of making headway in other areas such as road communications. The second issue under discussion was research and higher education. On this point the participants focused not only on existing difficulties such as the decline among French and Spanish students in the knowledge of each other's languages, but also the enormous potential that exists to form leading international poles of research in areas such as oncology and the micro-economy. 

Finally, a series of large-scale cultural projects were proposed, including an extension of Canal ARTE that would enable Spain to participate, the joint commemoration of the second bicentenary of the events of 2 May 1808, and common initiatives focusing on French-Spanish artists such as Pablo Picasso and Julio González. The Spain-France Dialogue Forum was devised with the aim that it will become an annual meeting that will be held alternately in venues in Spain and France; the conclusions and recommendations put forward by the participants at the coming Forum will be submitted to the Heads of State and Government of the two countries at the next French-Spanish Summit.