By Juan Pedro Marín Arrese, in Madrid | The Spanish Government has just approved a bill enshrining the budget golden rule by 2020. It aims to balance income and expenditure over the cycle, departing from that principle only in exceptional circumstances like a full-fledged recession. Such far away objective seems less than ambitious. Especially taking into account the loose path established to ensure that goal. Reducing debt by 2% only if…
The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2012 Report highlights dystopia as one of the major three risk cases. The concept is used to describe a scenario where literally “life is full of hardship and devoid of hope.” This is an ideal far away from the motto behind the Chinese Dream so insistently emphasised by the state’s propagandistic apparatus: prosperity will be achieved thanks to a society that works in unison…
[UPDATE] By Julia Pastor, in MADRID | The Spanish president Mariano Rajoy visited Berlin on Thursday. It was his first official meeting with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel since he was sworn in as president. Against the backdrop of the next January 31 European summit, it was expected that Rajoy would propose Merkel to relax Spain’s deficit ceiling for 2012 and 2013, considering the appreciable cutting of IMF’s growth perspectives for…
By Tania Suárez, in Madrid | After the storm, the sun shines. After several months of conflict and based on the relevant fact sent by Repsol to the CNMV, the Spanish financial supervisor, the Spanish oil company and Pemex have reached a “strategic agreement of mutual cooperation.” Below, we reproduce the statement: “Repsol YPS, Inc. (Repsol) and Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) have signed a letter of intent under which they undertake…
LONDON | The average family debt in the UK, excluding mortages, has increased by 48% in the past 12 months despite improvements in general levels of income. The latest report from Aviva, an in-depth study into the financial needs of the 84% of the British population who live as part of a modern family, shows a worrying portrait of a middle classes’ lifestyle deeply affected by the current economic climate. Aviva’s…
