Europe

Europe

Former parliamentary spokesperson named to handle power handover in Spain

21 November 2011 22:18 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Spainâ€™s Prime Minister elect Mariano Rajoy has named former parliamentary spokesperson Soraya Saenz de Santamaria to direct the handover of power between his Popular Party and the defeated Socialists of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

The news was confirmed following an Executive Committee Meeting of the PP on Monday in the wake of the partyâ€™s triumph in Sundayâ€™s General Election.

The election saw the PP defeating the Socialists and win an overall majority in Spain after taking 186 of the 350 seats in Congress.

PP Secretary General Maria Dolores de Cospedal told reporters that the party will also hold a national congress on Feb. 17-19 in the region of Andalusia and that Rajoy hopes to have formed his cabinet before Christmas.

The Congress, which was dissolved to hold the elections will convene again for the first time under the new government on December 13th after the transfer of power. Rajoy will be sworn in as Prime Minister on December 21st or 22nd before announcing his new cabinet and forming the new Spanish government.

Speaking on Monday, Cospedal insisted that Spain would maintain its obligations to the European Union and spoke of the need for an united strategy from all of the countries in the eurozone in order to deal with debt issue.

The election of the PP coincided with a fall in stock markets and further pressure on the countryâ€™s debt. The Spanish stock market fell by 3.48 percent and Spainâ€™s risk premium climbed to 466 points in the morning.