Aznar dreams of 'first division' role for Spain

By what compulsion does Spain's Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, join George Bush and Tony Blair in the Azores tomorrow? The right-wing former tax inspector is far more naturally a hawk than the British Prime Minister.

Mr Aznar's Popular Party has close kinship ties to General Franco's fascist regime. The party's founder and current president was in charge of Franco's political police, and Mr Aznar himself was a card-carrying fascist while Franco lived. He has never denounced that position.

And if he is happy to preside over a revival of Spanish bellicosity – despite the opposition of some 90 per cent of Spaniards – it is because he longs for Spain once again, as he has said, "to play in the first division". He told Newsweek:"Spain is a country in ascendance. I don't want my country to be standing on the sidelines of history."

Terrorism has long been a bigger menace in Spain than anywhere else in Europe, but Mr Aznar believed that his fellow Europeans failed to understand the scale of the threat. "He is obsessed with terrorism in Spain," says a senior Spanish journalist. The aftermath of the 11 September attacks gave him, she said, "the perfect opportunity to get the support of the US in the fight against terrorism".