Washington: Spaniards have not appreciated being singled out during the presidential debate in Denver, where Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney cited the country as an example that America should not follow.
Romney portrayed Spain as synonymous with economic incompetence and described it as being overly dependent on government aid.
“I don’t want to go down the path of Spain,” Romney said last week during the first presidential debate.
He said that government spending under President Barack Obama has reached 42 percent of the US economy, a figure comparable with America’s NATO ally.
“I want to go down the path of growth that puts Americans to work,” Romney said.
The remark was Romney’s latest to cause international offense during a campaign that much of the world is closely watching.
According to telegraph.com.au, his comments left Spaniards confused, and threatened to reinforce Romney’s perceived ‘handicap’ in international affairs.
“What I see is ignorance of what is reality, but especially of the potential of the Spanish economy," Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said.
Maria Dolores Cospedal, leader of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy``s Popular Party, noted that ‘Spain is not on fire from all sides like some on the outside have suggested’.
Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo called it ‘very unfortunate that other countries should be put up as examples’ when the facts are distorted, the report added.
ANI
