In Spain

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Do Spanish banks need independent audit?

The International Monetary Fund is urging Spain to take a page from Ireland and use an independent auditor to evaluate its banks, saying that could boost confidence. Speaking to reporters during the annual meetings in Washington, Antonio Borges, IMF’s European department head, said this should be the right thing to do, since financial market fears of the situation in many European countries have become “excessive,” especially in regard to Italy…


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Spain is part of the hope

After one of the worst sell-off days in weeks and talking about the “European problem”, some brokers find in Spain reasons for hope: “I think there is some reason for optimism with respect of Europe. Spain is an example. They are taking the hard steps. They are going to have an election in November that will likely make the conservative candidate the new Prime Minister of Spain and they will…





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Do we have to talk about it? Unemployment numbers in Spain

Someone even lost his temper: “If we need a bit of help with some tens of thousands of millions of euros, why not saying so? We must avoid the risk of an intervention. If a special loan could ease our internal difficulties, for instance with the financial system, let’s do it.” Finance minister Elena Salgado simply retorted to BBVA’s chairman Francisco González, whose words you just read, that such a question was…


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Your picture of cajas is not: message to The Daily Telegraph

LONDON | We know what The Daily Telegraph did last weekend. On Saturday 22, its daintly designed Business pages brought a report that fitted in two short columns some risk agency quotations and Spanish politicians’ chit-chat about ongoing disagreements as far as the future of the cajas is concerned. “Spain to merge cajas in attempt to calm fears” the headline read, and rightly so. Yet, apparently, this piece of news had had to be tamed on its way into the paper.