By IANS,
Cadiz (Spain): Foreign ministers who met before an annual Ibero-American Summit in Spain agreed that austerity measures aimed at alleviating Europe’s debt crisis were not enough, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said.
“We can say that there is practically a consensus that the austerity measures are necessary, but not sufficient. The key is growth,” said Garcia-Margallo.
The meeting in the southern Spanish city of Cadiz was aimed at fine-tuning details of the declaration for this year’s summit, reported Xinhua.
“We have analyzed the Cadiz Declaration. We have talked much about the crisis. We have talked much about its consequences and especially about its hardest aspect, unemployment, the one that most affects all of us,” Garcia-Margallo said.
The summit comes at a time when two of its prominent members — Spain and Portugal — are experiencing severe economic problems.
Some of the main figures of Latin America will be absent at this year’s summit. But it will not stop attempts by Spain to open up new routes for its companies to enter a market which now has 550 million people.