YouSaid · the spoken record

Arancha González Laya

lines on the record: 45
first: 2023-11-20
most recent: 2023-11-20
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Understand. And when difficult times come, if you make the right pitch and if you make the right explanations and if you go and be sincere with them, at the end it's going to be easier to manage the tough times. But there's been lots of sleepless nights, let's say.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To do is having to choose between terrible alternatives. Very often you are confronted with having to choose between a very, very bad and a very, very, very, very bad. Not between a good and a bad, but choosing between very difficult, tough decisions. This is what we had to do when we accepted to lock down the country and limit what's most sacred in our citizens, which is their freedom to move. I mean, these were big decisions. So I guess in this political world of having to sometimes choose between very, very difficult choices, you have to be able to explain to your citizens why you do that. And the second thing, therefore, that I've learned in domestic politics is that you have to keep very close to your citizens, that you've got to tell them that our citizens are intelligent.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Domestic politics is stuff because I was already doing politics, but I was doing it internationally where the, let's say, distance between the electorate and the politician is much wider. At home, you have a very close, intimate relationship with your citizens, with those that you serve in your capacity. And that has very good sides, but it also has very negative sides in terms of intrusion including into your own private life, you stop having a private life. But I would say, I mean, for me, public service has been a constant in my life. I've done it at the European level. I've done it at the international level. And doing it at the national level was a huge privilege. But it's not easy. Imagine that one month and a half after I had taken oath, I was confronted with COVID. And one of the most difficult things that politicians have.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, there are many different political forces in Latin America. They all have different political also perspectives. I listen a lot to President Borig in Chile, who's heading a coalition that he has to keep together to advance the country. I listened to Gustavo Petro in Colombia, who is also heading a coalition government more to the left of Boric that has to provide for solutions to its citizens. I listened to the new president of Guatemala, human rights activist that is having a lot of trouble getting some dark forces in the country to accept that he will be the new president of the country. We have to listen to all of them because they make for what Latin America is, which is also a plural and diverse political space.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think we have an opportunity now. We've got in Brazil a president that cares about Latin America and cares about Latin America having a say in international affairs. We've got political forces in Spain at the moment that understand the importance of working together with Latin America so that together with Spain and Portugal bringing the EU and Latin America closer together can help deploy our forces for what people care about.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Spain has an incredible relationship with Latin America because history made us together. And if I look at the number of Latin Americans living in Spain, if I look at the number of Spaniards living in Latin America, if I look at the fact that we speak the same language, and in reality we respond to the same codes, the relationship is incredibly rich. It's true that Spain has been very preoccupied with sorting out its own difficulties, the difficulties of a post-2008 crisis that left huge economic scars in the country, the difficulties of the unilateral referendum for independence that some pushed in Catalonia, the difficulties of coming together. So we've been a bit preoccupied with ourselves. It's also fair to say that in Latin America, there's been a number of political forces that has led many of the countries to be more inward-looking, more introvert.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I know it's tough, and I know that in the case of Israel and Palestine, this conversation about people is rendered more difficult by radicals. And we also have to deal with that. But I think the majority of us care about people.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Got to talk about people, and we've got to talk about their dignity. When I got up this morning and I was listening to the radio, I heard this woman from Palestine, this lady, that was talking to the presenter of the program from Gaza. And she said, and I quote, we are not just news. We are people. In Gaza is about people. In the kibbutz, in Israel, terrorists from Hamas murdered is people in Ukraine is people. In Myanmar is people. So we got to go back to people and their dignity and their rights and our collective obligation to defend and stand up for them above distinctions of race, religion, political affiliation, and the rest. We are people. So we've got to go back to that.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Leader with little L, but with a capacity to shape realities around them, that they've got to find the spaces where they can exercise this leadership, but that they are not powerless. The last thing we want is to tell a young population that whatever they will do, it wouldn't matter. This is creating an army of nihilists.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“People, people like you have had an impact when people took to the streets in Fridays for Future. They made climate change a political issue on the agenda. When people went out on the streets in the Me Too movement, they created an incredible cascading effect that started to break this very anti-women attitudes in many parts of our society. So I guess what we need to be clear with our young generation, thus, is what I tell them here in Sian Spo, but this is what I tell every young person that I meet and I meet many of them because I'm passionate about talking to them and making them activists and ensuring they become activists because they are the legitimacy basis for our democracies in the future. I tell them that they are leaders, that they are leaders.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I really like this question, Alistair, because this is a question that I got from one of my students last year at the beginning of the academic year. A student asked me, if the world is broken beyond repair, why should I care? So we have to be very careful with the young generation, not to give them the impression that they are powerless. Not to give them the impression that they are disempowered because they are not. The response was look at all these.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Has also been captured into ideological fights on the right and on the left. We have to push to make this an issue of societies, not an ideological issue. It's fundamentally in our countries, which are democracies, it's a democratic issue. But the second thing I've learned also is that this is not a fight of women working with women to advance the cause of women. This is about men and women working together. And it's not going to happen if we are not convinced that this is not a zero-sum game, that this is positive for men and positive for women. The task ahead of us is huge, which is why Alistair and Rory, I hope we kind of agree that we have to work together men and women to advance more equal societies.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would tell you that when I was young and when I entered the labor market, I was not a feminist because I thought that you would get there for your merits and a bit of luck. I mean, luck is always very, very helpful. But when I got into the labor market and I started working first as a lawyer and then in the European Commission, I realized that there were systems where power was not distributed evenly, where there were discriminations overt and sometimes more subtle that didn't make it easy for women to advance. So I guess that I've grown to become a feminist. And if I may, the two things that I've learned in this journey, one that the advancement of women and the empowerment of women will not happen automatically. That we will have to push. And especially now when there is a big pushback because feminism”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, if I sit in some of these conversations, I would be totally depressed, but I always have to think, what can we change for small that this something is? Where can we have an influence? Where is there space for small little progress, a dialogue, a cooperation, which is why today and that's very fractured worldized environment, I keep on insisting that we've got to keep bridges open for dialogue and cooperation.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first, I would tell you that I've also had another part of my life, not just in senior positions in the UN, but also working on the ground, heading the International Trade Center, which is a development agency of the UN and the World Trade Organization working to help informal entrepreneurs, small and medium enterprises, women in business participate in international trade. And I've done this in Liberia and I've seen this in Afghanistan and we've done this in Palestine and in so many other parts of the world. So let's say that I've also seen the realities on the ground. And what I would tell you is that what I have learned and the school of Jacques Delors, the incredible president of the European Commission, he always said, never choose between being an optimist or a pessimist. Choose to be an activist. And this is what I try to apply in my life. Be an activist.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, I think we need to add others into that mix clearly these five permanent members don't represent the world of today.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, and this has obviously limits, and we are seeing some of these limits on the ground. Now, there is the other UN, the political UN, the one that has the Security Council that is responsible for managing the solution, for providing solution to today's conflict. This is highly dysfunctional today. This is where we need a reform of the political structures and the political compact in the UN. The Secretary General has launched this summit of the future for next year where he is advocating for addressing some of these challenges. I don't think we can replace the UN with something else. I think the hard reality is that we have to work to change what the UN is today in a manner that is more inclusive, but also a bit more efficient.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think there are different parts of the UN. Well, first, the UN is the members that make the UN sit around the table making decisions. They are the shareholders of the organization. And frankly, because they are at the moment, they are not in a very healthy shape. They are not at the moment in a very cooperative mood, the situation of the UN is not good. Now, the UN is also the thousands of people that work in the UN. The UN is also the humanitarian agencies that today are in the front line of all the conflicts that are happening in the world, including in Ukraine, including in Gaza, including in Myanmar, including in Sudan. These are the men and women that fight for all of us every day, for giving shelter, giving food, managing humanitarian situations.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To take in them because it's our humane responsibility. And then there is others. Now, it is true that when they get to the border, sometimes we don't know in which category they are. And it's fair to say that many asylum seekers coming to our borders ask for asylum in reality they don't fall into that category. But I think we have to make a very serious distinction. And in that distinction, obviously, internationally, we have to look at how do we share the responsibility of welcoming these citizens, again that are fleeing conflict. And frankly, with the multiplication of conflicts around us, this task is going to be a more complicated task, which is why we would do well also in working towards managing conflicts.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we were talking about migrants, but there is a category of migrants called refugees, asylum seekers, that have internationally recognized protection. These are the people that are fleeing wars, conflict, persecution, political, sexual, etc. Very soon we will have in that category two those that are fleeing the impact of climate change because we are seeing countries will disappear as a result of climate change, the rise in the level of the seas will lead to countries disappearing. And we will have to deal with those climate migrants or climate refugees. But refugees and asylum seekers have a special international protection and all our countries have agreed to respect international rules on asylum seekers and refugees. So let's not put all of this into the same bag. We've got one part where we've come.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Organize social security, proper contracts, proper salaries. So, what we need to do is manage the migration. And frankly, this can be done when I was foreign minister working with my colleague, the minister for migration. We started doing that. We started doing agreements with countries. We did this with Senegal. We did this with a couple of Central American countries.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally agree. And I think, again, it's a bit like with climate change, we've got to fight this battle with arguments. Europe and the UK is in Europe from this point of view. is demographically in decline. This means that we will need migration in our societies. And this is already a reality. The alternative, therefore, is not between migration yes or migration no, but rather how do we do the migration? How do we manage it? Do we let the mafias control migratory flows into our territories or do we organize this migration working with countries of origin, devising mechanisms to train the people that we would need in our own labor markets in the countries of origin?”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ensure faster pace with more equity. Just a few days ago here in Sianspo, we had an incredible discussion with our students that are also debating and discussing among themselves how to do that. But the expectation is not that we do less Alistair. The expectation is that we do more. Let's wait and see if the electorate in the British election are ready to roll back on the fight against climate change when every citizen in the UK is feeling already the impact of climate change. I want to see that.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, let's wait and see what the young people tell us in the next European elections. I mean, I think for sure the conservatives in Europe are trying to hijack the green agenda under the excuse that it's too complex, that it's too costly, well, okay, then let's have a debate about how do we ensure greater fairness. Let's look at what instruments we can deploy to do that. But let's not stop the fight against climate change because I'm sorry to say this is an existential fight. And it's not me saying it. We just need to look around us. It's very clear that this is our collective responsibility. Now let's discuss with the young generation. I want to see what happens in the next European elections. And in the meantime, I think collectively we have to have a serious conversation about how we”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Worry, but more than worrying, I'm trying to present a different alternat Citizens decide, and we will have a very interesting moment next year with European elections. And this is when citizens will tell us. And we have to be ready for that battle. Last time in 2019, when we had the last European elections, we had an increase in participation. And this participation was driven by young people in Europe, in the EU. And these young people were basically fighting on one topic that they thought was existential to them, climate change. And they told the politicians, this is what we want Europe to do.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The ordinary challenges of citizens to basically offer magic recipes in the form of direct relationships between leaders and people without institutions, without constitutions, without judges, without media, which we know is the favorite of illiberal forces. So we've got to deal with these two things. The international reorganization, redistribution of power, and the internal forces push back against the pushback on populists.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like 20th century in a 21st century where the balance of power has changed. But I think we also have to acknowledge that there's been a big questioning of liberal democracies within liberal democracies. We've seen also the attempts to hollow out liberal democracies from within, maybe because of the huge changes that our countries have also gone through and are going through, whether it's the changes related to technology, which has changed labor markets fundamentally, whether it's climate change that is obliging all of us to reform the manner in which our economies work and the manner in which we consume. These are all big transformations. And then also probably because in many places, illiberal forces within our democracies have used citizen fatigue with the slow pace of response that democracies sometimes have had to”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I've been observing this first, there has been a massive redistribution of power in the world. And this redistribution of power in the world, I mean, when I joined the labor market at the beginning of the 90s, China represented 2% of the world economy today. It represents 20% of the world economy. By the way, a world economy that has massively increased. I'm saying this about China, but I could say the same about Indonesia, about India, about Turkey, about Mexico, about South Africa. The distribution of power in the world has changed. And we've not been too successful in reorganizing the institutions, the mechanisms and the rules that we've given ourselves to govern this international sphere, whether it's the IMF or the World Bank, whether it's the World Trade Organization, whether it's the United Nations that still has a Security Council that looks very much”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Republicans and Democrats that you have to invest in those social safety nets too because if not what we will see is a big backlash against open markets, a desire to retreat behind domestic borders, isolationist pulsions that we already see appearing. So I think it is important to also make the case for open markets, but a strong social safety nets. The two need to be clearly on the table, especially now that we've got this new disruptor called technology called artificial intelligence that's going to be an even bigger game changer, which we have to learn also to respond to. We cannot just simply tell our citizens, you know, technology is great, get on with it. No, we need a serious discussion about social safety nets, a new social contract.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We want to keep international trade generating growth, competitiveness, and innovation, we have to do more than simply trade policies. We have to look at social safety nets. We have to look at education, retraining. We've got to look at investments in healthcare. We've got to look at research and development. We've got to look at infrastructures, housing, all of this has to be part of a serious economic policy of open markets. I worry in particular about the US because I think the US is an incredibly competitive economy. It's incredibly innovative. I mean, technologically, digitally, you name it. And yet the capacity of the US to remain a market open to its own companies is a risk by the lack of investments in social safety nets, by the absence of a very serious domestic consensus between the two big parties.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I've always thought that trade is an incredible tool. It has helped many countries around the world transform from agrarian economies to industrial and now services economies. It has helped in improving competitiveness, innovation, and growth. But it is also fair to say that trade and globalization has created incredible competition forces where they've been losers and winners. And in some parts of the world, we've taken care of the losers in some other parts of the world. We have not. And in the parts of the world where we have not taken care of the losers, there is a big resentment against trade. There is a big resentment about globalization. So I think what history tells us is that if we want to keep markets open,”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Now, can we say that Great Britain has more influence in shaping international trade today than it's on its own than as part of the European Union? And I think we have to be lucid. It's not the case. It's basically that the attractiveness of a market that is 700 million people is not the same as a very small market that the UK represents in the big scheme of things. It's paradoxical, but this is what happens with populists. They give you very simple recipes of taking control. When in reality they are taking control, but the country is not, the country is losing it.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, because we're living in a world of giants where in order to be able to shape internationally, to have an influence, to have a say on international trade or to be active in mediating in conflicts, you've got to have a size. Now, the UK has an incredible history and lots of relationships with many countries around the world. But in today's world, the UK has become a small country from all points of view. And this does not mean belittling the UK. It's just a factual description of the situation. The UK had an enormous ability to influence internationally through the European Union. I mean, I've lived in the world of international trade for many years, as you know. And I can tell you that the trade policy of the European Union had a lot to do with the British shaping it.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That the citizens have made. But let's say that seven years later, I feel that the UK citizens are looking back at what some voted that day with a bit of regret.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think for all of us in Spain, it was a very sad day. We've got a very special relationship with the UK. The UK has a big presence in terms of citizens in our country, and we have a big presence of Spaniards in the UK. And I myself, an example of that, I've had very close association with the UK going to the UK to learn English since I was a very small kid. And I feel very close to the country. And this is why when the British citizens, with a very thin result, decided to leave the European Union, I was very, very sad, not only because I thought this was bad for the European Union. It's the first time in our history where we see a member leave the family, but also because I thought this was not a good decision for the UK. This was not a good decision for the UK citizens. Now, I'm very respectful of the decision.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Government is a very, let's say, expansive where it's not independence, it's not a confederation like in Switzerland, it's one country with autonomies in the form of regions. And I guess what we have to preserve above all is the ability to change the constitution that we have, but to do this together.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first, because we've gone through a lot of trouble in our history, the history of Spain is not an easy history and where we've always had to juggle with fitting all different parts of the country together. Sometimes it was the fight between the liberals and the conservatives. Sometimes it was between Republicans and Francoists sometimes. So this Kaleidoscopic differences that make the country have been a constant in our history. And I think what we learn after very difficult years of dictatorship that lasted very long, almost 40 years, we gave ourselves a constitution and it was all of us giving all of us a constitution, a constitution that represents this desire to overcome the past and build a more modern Spain where the regions have their place, where they've got areas which they manage, where they lead on,”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Possibility to express their diversity while being part of Spain. And we always have to be trying to accept these differences. Not everyone accepts this. We've also seen, in a way, the rebirth of a Spanish nationalism. And this is our constant quest for diversity within unity.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think what we have is a country that is very diverse, where a feeling of belonging to Spain are diverse depending on the part of Spain you're at. The European Union is diversity, right? So I've always felt that this diversity was something that you could manage to be Spanish and yet feel very strongly about your specific region that you could speak your regional language, Basque language in my case, the literature, the gastronomy, the traditions that you could cry with the music of that region and still feel Spanish. And I think thus is perfectly possible because this is what the European Union is also. It's unity in those diversity. Now, this diversity has different manifestations. We've got in Spain citizens, a small part, but we need to be respectful of their beliefs that don't want to be part of Spain. They want to break away.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is that I didn't know what I wanted to become, but I was very clear that for me, Europe was this big light that guided me that I thought should guide my country. I was avid reader of Europe and European affairs since I was a child because I thought Europe represented this freedom, this democracy, this community we needed to be part of, which is why I decided to very early on that I wanted to be part of that adventure.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Eyes. When Spain is there and Spain deploys all its force on all its contribution, the others are ready for a more active Spain Take us back again one second to earlier life. You presumably have very faint childhood memories of Franco. Tell us a little bit about what that journey was like, what the politics was like through the lens of your own relatives and family. How did all this form you? Because eventually you joined a socialist government, is that right? That's right. That's right. I guess I was born at the tail end of a dictatorship. Dictatorship was not a nice place to be. We had a bit of a gray country at that time. Remember also that I was born in the Basque country that had decided to take terrorism as a form of resistance to dictatorship. It then degenerated as every terrorist movement does. It degenerates into coercion, corruption, and violence without much reason. But at that time, let's say beginning of the 70s, this was a form of resistance to dictatorship. What I can tell you of my childhood.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I think Spain suffers from a complex of inferiority, I think Spain has a lot to say and a lot to bring to the European Union. It's a country where a lot of the values of the European Union are very present. People feel there is a lot of solidarity between people. We welcome migrants. We are biggest donor of organs in the world. We care about our environment. We are determined to fight against climate change. And yet sometimes I have the impression that Spain punches below its weight. And I think this is the inferiority complex of having arrived at the European Union after the others, not having shared the dreams of the founders of the European Union because we did not participate in the Second World War. So we were not part of that reconciliation, although we had massive reconciliation to do in the country post-Civil War. So always a bit behind. But I've seen it with my own.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Certainly not. I mean, I guess my story is the story of so many Spaniards that had incredible opportunities when we go back to democracy and the country and when we had access to an incredible education system and when we became members of the European Union, this process of modernizing Spain post-Franco meant many new opportunities for people like me. My parents were average Spanish citizens my father was a teacher I was born in San Sebastian but my father was a teacher in a very rural area and a little village in the middle of the Basque country and my story is that of the opportunities that Spain gave to citizens that were educated and adolescent in the post-Franco times.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What we were debating transatlantic relations. You know, the world is a bit complex today and there is a bit of so searching on both sides of the Atlantic, on the US and on Europe, about how we can work together, how we can advance our interests and values together, because let's say that in the last period we've tried, but we've had a bit of hiccups. Remember, there was Trump on the US. There was a lot of preoccupation on the European side about internal domestic politics. We need to get this relationship right because there are clouds gathering in the horizon.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very, very lucky to have with us Arancia Gonzalez Lyon, who was Spain's foreign minister, but has also done an extraordinary variety of other jobs. She was very senior at the World Trade Organization. She was a senior official at the European Commission, and she is now the head of Sience Po, which is the most famous probably school of international affairs anywhere in the world based in Paris. And she's also, I think, I mean, we met first in a monastery in Segovia, a monastery associated with a sort of rather sinister man called Torque Mada. This was his great home monastery. But she's also the only person I know who seems to speak more languages than Alistair. So welcome very much to the show, Arancha. Thank you. A pleasure to be with you.”
2023-11-20 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 46. Arancha González Laya: The World’s Most Powerful Organisations · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source