PP opposition leader Mariano Rajoy announced yesterday lunchtime that he will offer the new government a Foreign Affairs Pact after it is sworn in at the start of next week.

The right wing leader was responding to a question about a photo taken during the recent NATO summit in Bucharest that shows a seemingly isolated president Zapatero sitting on his own while the rest of the Alliance's leaders can be seen chatting together in the background.

Mr Rajoy believes that Spain is "a great country" and should be playing a "much more important and relevant role" on the world stage than it has over the last four years.

No Bush interview as Zapatero meets Polish and Australian leaders
By: thinkSPAIN
Friday, April 4, 2008

José Luis Rodríguez's busy week continues today with an audience with King Juan Carlos, who has been meeting all parliamentary leaders this week prior to the swearing in of the new government at the start of next week. The king will meet PP opposition leader Mariano Rajoy an hour earlier, at 11am.

At the NATO summit in Bucharest, Mr Zapatero was congratulated in passing on his recent general election success by USA president George W. Bush, but there was no first official meeting between the two.

However, the Spanish leader did meet Polish president Lech Kaczynski and Australia's new social-democrat PM Kevin Rudd, and is also reported to have held "lengthy conversations" with UK PM Gordon Brown, German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Notwithstanding, Mr Zapatero did not manage to speak to Russian president Vladimir Putin, who arrived late yesterday evening as a special guest of the Alliance ahead of a talks today.