On 9 December 1991, at the Maastricht European Council, Enrique Barón Crespo, the first Spanish President of the European Parliament, assesses the progress made since the Rome European Council of 27 and 28 October 1990 in the fields of political and monetary union, institutions and the common foreign and security policy (CFSP), and discusses the federalist vocation of Europe.

Conclusions of the European Council held in Madrid on 15 and 16 December 1995 to close the second Spanish Presidency of the European Union, in which the major themes covered include employment, the single currency, the holding of an Intergovernmental Conference in 1996 for the revision of the Treaties, and the enlargement of the EU towards Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

The European Parliament Office in Spain publishes a poster in several official languages with the slogan ‘Your voice in Europe', with the aim of encouraging Spanish citizens to participate in the European elections on 13 June 1999. This comes at a time when debates are being held on the ‘democratic deficit' and significant institutional reforms are being planned to coordinate efforts with a view to the fifth enlargement of the European Union.

The programme for the Spanish Presidency during the first six months of 2002 is presented by the Spanish State Secretary for the European Union; entitled ‘More Europe. Programme of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union’, this document sets out the circumstances and priorities of the Presidency, which was to be particularly dominated by the entry into circulation of the single currency, the EU’s enlargement to the East and the international climate following the attacks of 11 September 2001.

In this interview, José María Gil-Robles, President of the European Parliament from 1997 to 1999, discusses how the introduction of the euro in Spain helped encourage a certain interdependence between the EU Member States and therefore promoted the principle of solidarity. He also describes the euro as a fundamental instrument for common European sovereignty and as a basic tool for job creation.