Luis Alcaide | Pedro Sánchez will be monitored from every corner to see if he can count on the collaboration of a Spanish administration more independent than in the past. He will have to manage budgetary imbalances and growth of public debt. Furthermre, his fellow citizens rate corruption, after unemployment, their greatest concern.
Guy Hedgecoe | Fixation with electoral numbers is one of the most unhealthy obsessions of contemporary Spanish politics. It’s a mindset that places enormous emphasis on victory at the ballot box, in the belief that it will bring with it not just political power, but moral righteousness.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | Mariano Rajoy has left the Moncloa to be replaced by the socialist leader Pedro Sanchez, who 10 days before couldn´t have imagined a substitution so rapid or so brutal. However, Spain’s problems remain: whether the demands for Catalan independence and other nationalist forces that threaten the constitution and national unity, or the urgent need for profound reforms in the welfare system and the management of public accounts, threatened by the deficit and the debt.
J.P. Marín Arrese | PM Pedro Sánchez will govern backed by a weak minority party. There will be little respite from either those who voted for him or those who voted against him. No one expects the new Spanish government can deliver any substantive policies. Yet, such an isolated and weak position can also be a valuable asset.
The number of jobless people registered in the public employment services’ offices fell by 83,738 in May compared to the previous month (-2.5%). The total number of unemployed stood at 3.25 million end-May.
Raimundo Poveda | The Spanish pension system is one more which exists in the OECD and, probably, not one of the worst. Neither are its problems very original. Just like in other countries in the club, the financial hardships which were the result of the Big Recession led to cuts. These were implemented in 2011 by the PSOE, with the PP causing a big scandal, then in 2013 by the PP, with the roles reversed.
The household savings rate lay below 6% of gross disposable income in 2017, a figure similar to 2007 just before the real estate bubble burst, and well below the peak reached in 2009 of 13.4%. What factors explain the sharp decline that has occurred in the last few years? CaixaBank Research focuses on this issue.
Shaun Riordan | The motion of censure against Spanish Prime Minister and the election of socialist leader Sanchez as his successor has briefly spooked markets. But in the end it may make less difference than it seems at first sight.
Victoria Torre (SelfBank) | A tense day was expected in Spanish financial markets, with the vote on the censure motion against the government of Mariano Rajoy and doubts about whether the President would resign. He didn´t and the censure motion was adopted with 180 votes in favour.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | The Spanish parliament has suddenly and unexpectedly used a constitutional motion of censure against the government of Rajoy to elect a new government. The new government returns Spain to the ancient ghosts of the first third of the 20th century: multi-party and fractured coalitions.