The European Commission has unveiled a document with an anual battery of recommendations to improve the Spain’s economy’s weak points. It has asked, for the sixth consecutive year, that the improves its public system for finding employment.
Spanish banks (and their fund management companies) continue to charge high commissions on their investment funds and pension plans. They can afford to do that because in Spain, the clients are the banks’ clients and they are cautious. So there is little competition in this sector, unlike in the UK.
It was the result Spain’s Socialist bigwigs had feared: a resounding victory for Pedro Sánchez in their party’s primary on Sunday, beating Andalusia premier Susana Díaz and former Basque premier Patxi López, to become leader for a second time.
After a turbulent year in 2016 for Spanish politics and especially for socialist party, the primary election for PSOE will be held next Sunday. The election of candidates had never generated so much interest in the media and the people, but this time is different. The future of declining social democracy across Europe could start clearing in Spain.
It makes for a good headline: “Spanish parties vote to exhume dictator Franco”. Apart from the implied drama of digging up a feared former ruler, those words suggest that there is now a consensus regarding the country’s historical memory and a willingness to act on it.
Fernando Rodríguez |The first quarter results from the Spanish banks have fuelled rises in the majority of their stock prices. But analysts are divided over the future market performance of a sector which is showing some lights, like a decline in provisions, but also a few shadows, such as weak profitability.
The European Commission says that Spain continues to grow above the eurozone average and that this year GDP growth will exceed its highest pre-crisis level.
Spain has lost its first case in an international arbitrage court, namely the World Bank’s Ciadi, related to the cuts applied to the renewables remuneration from 2010. The ruling is in favour of the UK Company Eiser Infrastructure Ltd. and its Luxembourg subsidiary Energy Solar Luxembourg,
Spain’s new CNMV board, headed up by Sebastián Albella, has embarked on a big reform drive, implementing a whole range of initiatives, to make the Spanish financial market more trustworthy.
The gathering of endorsement signatures by candidates ahead of the leadership contest of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) is not usually seen as overly significant. The numbers are a vague indicator, no more, of the support a particular candidate can expect in the final vote by party activists. But this time, ahead of the PSOE’s May 21 primary, it’s different.