José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero Carme Chacon made the announcement saying, "The mission has been completed and it is time to return home." Asked if the United States shared that assessment, Wood said, "Not at all." Later on, Vice President Joe Biden stated that the American relationship with Spain goes beyond "whatever disagreement we may have over Kosovo". Zapatero's predecessor, José María Aznar, defended a strong Atlanticist policy. Zapatero has downplayed that policy in favour of a pan-European one. He has also sponsored the idea of an Alliance of Civilizations which is co-sponsored by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In the writing of what
Cristina Garmendia innovation. On April 11, 2008 the president of the Spanish Government, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, elected Cristina Garmendia as holder of a new ministry, Minister of Science and Innovation, which was going to be created during the IX term of office. The Ministry of Science and Innovation for the first time drew together all the Government’s capacities and bodies to promote R&D, including Public Research Bodies, the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (CDTI). The Ministry was created with the mandate to fully harness the economic potential the scientific capacity of the country