Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that under the new Treaty of Lisbon the 27-member EU must work to assert itself more on the global stage.
One of the key goals of the treaty is to streamline EU decision-making procedures so the bloc can act more quickly. It also created the post of full-time president, Belgium's Herman Van Rompuy, and named a new foreign policy chief, Britain's Catherine Ashton.
Zapatero spoke in a short video posted on a website the government has created to launch the presidency.
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