Carlo didn’t pay much attention to the eting with President Thiers of France, but he did take so ti to et Thiers briefly and had a friendly exchange.
Although the Spanish Royal Family only consists of Carlo and Queen Sophie, it is closely connected to the Italian Royal Family and the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Family.
Therefore, even though Carlo is young and yet to grasp real power, President Thiers must maintain sufficient respect for him.
However, because Carlo is not interested in interfering too much in diplomatic affairs, after a brief eting and greeting with Carlo, President Thiers left the Imperial Palace to continue lengthy negotiations with the Spanish Governnt.
For the French Governnt, Spain is a country that must be won over. Even at a certain cost, it must ensure that Spain leans more towards France between Germany and France.
Because only in this way can it be ensured that France is not completely isolated, which concerns the future balance of power between Germany and France, the French Governnt will not make any concessions or compromises.
President Thiers had long anticipated the difficulty of negotiating with the Spanish Governnt. Diplomatic negotiations are never done overnight, especially when it involves the future national and strategic policies between France and Spain, which takes at least a few weeks to complete.
However, President Thiers does not intend to personally finalize the entire cooperation agreent. As the head of France, his role is to establish a frawork of cooperation between the French Governnt and the Spanish Governnt. Subsequently, the two governnts will formulate more detailed cooperation based on the frawork agreed upon by high-level officials.
Once it was confird that the Spanish Governnt did not have a complete inclination towards the Germans, President Thiers finally felt relieved.
At least France will not face the worst-case scenario, which is what President Thiers truly wanted to know and ensure.
Although the land environnt in Spain is the worst in Europe, there are still many scenic spots worth visiting when it cos to tourism resources.
This diplomatic negotiation persisted for a long ti, with President Thiers staying in Madrid for nearly ten days.
The good news is that before President Thiers left Madrid, he and Pri Minister Prim finally signed a draft cooperation agreent between the two governnts.
So key aspects of the cooperation between the two sides were further discussed, such as the amount of funds Spain could borrow from the French financial sector.
According to the draft of the cooperation agreent, the French Governnt is willing to provide Spain with at least 500 million francs in low-interest loans.
If the Spanish Governnt borrows more than 500 million francs at once, the French Governnt will disburse all the loans to the Spanish Governnt over five years.
Due to the long loan disbursent period, the Spanish Governnt has a repaynt term of 20 years. It only needs to repay the principal of 500 million francs plus 100 million francs in interest within the 20th year after borrowing.
Although the 100 million francs in interest seems high, spread over 20 years, the annual interest paynt is only 5 million francs, which is 1% of the principal.
Of course, this low-interest rate cos with so conditions. Firstly, at least 300 million of the 500 million francs in the loan must be used to purchase goods from France, and the remaining 200 million francs can be freely allocated by the Spanish Governnt.
In other words, of the 500 million francs loan, the Spanish Governnt can actually access only 200 million francs. The remaining 300 million francs serve more like a virtual currency promised by the French, only usable to import goods from France, and not usable in other countries.
However, Spain can accept this arrangent. France is also a powerful industrial nation, and Spain can import a large amount of industrial equipnt and technical materials from France.
Currently, the value of francs and pesetas is not significantly different. According to the latest exchange rate, the value of 500 million francs is equivalent to 516.25 million pesetas, which is comparable to Spain’s entire fiscal expenditure last year.
One cannot deny that, even while shouldering 5 billion francs in reparations, the French can still offer Spain a 500 million francs loan over five years, demonstrating a significant economic scale and capacity.
Last year’s total fiscal revenue for Spain was less than 500 million francs, proving the current gap between Spain and France. Spain is still far from being a major power, especially in terms of industry and economy.
Pri Minister Prim naturally accepts this low-interest loan offered by the French with ease. The French dare not impose any harsh conditions on this loan since they genuinely wish to win over Spain.
Even if it cannot establish an alliance treaty between Spain and France, it must at least ensure Spain is more inclined towards France and distanced from Germany.
Aside from financial assistance, the French will also provide their industrial technology to help Spain develop and build more effectively.
Excluding so high-importance industrial equipnt and technology, other common industrial technologies can be sold to Spain.
This includes not only heavy industry and chemical industry but also military industry and chanical design and manufacturing.
With the loans provided by the French, Spain need not worry about the lack of funds when purchasing equipnt and technology. Although 500 million francs might not be an astronomical number for major powers, it allows Spain, a relatively small nation, to purchase a significant amount of industrial equipnt and related production materials, aiding Spain in better building its heavy industry, chemical industry, military industry, and other industrial sectors.
User Comments
0 comments from readers