Candidates agree two-tier EU is out of the question

There isn't much that Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and Mariano Rajoy agree on these days. But they both coincided on Tuesday when rejecting a suggestion by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel that a two-tier European Union should be established.

"We are going to continue posting our bets for a strong Europe, the way it is currently designed," said Popular Party candidate Rajoy, who criticized any intentions of change but without mentioning his conservative French and German allies or the European People's Party (EPP) by name.

In Ibiza, Rubalcaba also dismissed calls for divisions in the EU. "Europe is going through a very complicated situation due to some guys who use their computers to speculate," he said. "When a country changes [a] left [government] for the right, things get worse. You can see that happening in Portugal and Great Britain."

The PP candidate reiterated that he will bring down the current deficit from six percent to 4.4 percent of GDP. But to do so, the PP leader will have to make some 36 billion euros of cuts.

Rubalcaba again insisted that Spain needs to ask for a two-year moratorium to reduce its deficit, a proposal he announced on Monday.