Spain will attend the G20 in the United States

Lately, the Spanish government has been fretting about the possibility of being left out of the G20 meeting. At least, it appeared it was going to be so when the meeting was called. In Spain there was lack of understanding about how or why the country which has the world’s eighth-largest economy and a banking system that is weathering the financial storm better than others in Europe was not going to be included. Since President George W. Bush announced the meeting two weeks ago, José Luis Zapatero. the Spanish president, has been on a mission to get Spain, which is not a G20 member, into the meeting. The decision to get invited to the meeting depended on the United States which is holding it. There were rumors that Bush was not too kin on inviting Spain due to Zapatero’s decision to get the country out of Iraq, but at the moment Bush on his lasts weeks in office is not probably looking for more trouble and he was probably relieved when a growing list of foreign leaders, such as Gordon Brown, the prime minister of Britain, and Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, voiced support for Spain’s inclusion. And of course, France which has two seats, one because it is a member of the G20 and the other because it holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, has helped to solve the problem. Its president, Nicolas Sarkozy will give Spain one of its two seats. The last decision is that the five places that traditionally the UE has in the G-20 will be now occupied by Germany, France, Italy, Britain and Spain. Hopefully now not only everybody is satisfied but also the meeting will produce a satisfactory result.