Mariano Rajoy

An Airbus A400M military plane crashed into a field 1.6 kilometers north of San Pablo airport in Seville in southern Spain on May 9 while apparently on a test flight, officials said.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said between eight and 10 people were on board, Spanish newspaper El Pais reported. The prime minister's office could not confirm the comments.

EU foreign ministers will be joined April 20 by their interior minister colleagues to discuss the latest migrant disaster in the Mediterranean which may have cost 700 lives, an EU official said.

Spanish authorities launched an investigation of former IMF chief Rodrigo Rato on allegations of fraud and money laundering.

Rato was taken from his home in Madrid on Thursday by officers from Spanish tax authorities, while police searched his home and office, the BBC reports.

Mariano Rajoy sent the Greek government and Alexis Tsipras a clear message on Monday, namely, that the EU has its own rules and that none can make their own.  However, he said he remained hopeful that Greece will quickly overcome the situation it finds itself in.

France's BEA (Bureau of Investigations and Analyses) said it has successfully extracted recordings from the cockpit voice recorder of the Germanwings plane that crashed in the French Alps on Tuesday.

BEA Director Remi Jouty said at a news conference at its headquarters outside Paris on Wednesday it could take days to get "usable" information from the voice recordings.

According to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, no Bulgarian citizens were featured on the list of passengers, who were on board of the Germanwings plane, which crashed on Tuesday.

At present the same information is being confirmed by the German Foreign Ministry, the press service of Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry informs.

Vucic offers condolences to Merkel and Rajoy

BELGRADE -- Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic expressed his condolences to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

His message came following a plane crash in the French Alps that killed nationals of the two countries on Tuesday.

French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy arrived near the site of the German airliner that crashed in the French Alps.
      
The three leaders, looking sombre and dressed in black, met rescue workers and police outside the crisis centre set up in the wake of Tuesday's disaster, in which 150 people were killed.

Hundreds of people are taking part in a rescue operation in the French Alps after a Germanwings airplane with 150 people on board went down near Barcelonette in Southern France while en route from Spain to Düsseldorf.

All 144 passengers and 6 crew are feared dead, and the EU Commission has declared three days of mourning over the incident.

"The United States offers condolences and stands ready to provide assistance in the investigation of Germanwings' Airbus A320 crash" said the US President.