Santo Domingo.- The former primeminister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, praised the government of presidentDanilo Medina and described the Regularization Plan being implemented by theDominican government as positive. He said that during his own administration he had carried out a regularization plan in Spain between 2006 and 2007, whichregularized the status of 740,000 immigrants who had been working in verydifficult conditions.
“In fact, I must say that most of them were LatinAmerican, thousands of Dominicans and Ecuadorians, who were there irregularlyand who thanks to this regularization now have rights and a work career, and couldhave a pension in the future. I believe that immigration is a reality of ourage and that immigration should be legal,” declared the former PM.
He reiterated that the international communityshould show solidarity with the Dominican Republic at this time.
“In Europe we also have a very serious migratory problem. Spain was seriously affectedin 2006 and we received solidarity from Europe. Now Greece is experiencing it,so are Italy and the Balkans, and the European Union must show solidarity. I thinkthat one must ask for solidarity from Latin America as a whole, one must askfor solidarity from the United States for the Dominican Republic, to supportthe migratory burden”, he added
Rodríguez Zapatero, who is a member of thePresidium of the Socialist International, was speaking during a courtesy visitto president Danilo Medina at the National Palace in Santo Domingo, after beingintroduced by PRD party president Miguel Vargas Maldonado. They wereaccompanied by Spanish ambassador Jaime Lacadena.
Zapatero said that during this visit to theDominican head of state he perceived him as doing better than two years ago than whenhe visited him together with members of the Central American parliament. “Betterpersonally and better politically, because it is very noteworthy that in theinternational community at present he is the president with the highest ratingsand I have corroborated the reasons, which are that the work he is doing istangible and this provides an enormous rating to his credibility among thecitizenry”, he stated.