MADRID | By Fernando G. Urbaneja | Spanish Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardón announced his resignation on Tuesday after the government scrapped his controversial abortion reform plan restricting it to only cases of rape or serious health risks. Although Mr Gallardón had 30-year-experience in politics, president Rajoy let him go –he didn’t want to take the risk of losing more votes in the next elections.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | It is likely that the Spanish government will revise its growth forecasts upwards for the country in 2014, but only by one tenth of a percentage point-to 1.3%. This is likely to be the submission that the Ministry of Economy together with the Ministry of Finance will give to the next Council of Ministers.
MADRID | The Corner | As expected, eurozone finance ministers have yet to agree on the guarantees requested by Mario Draghi for the riskier asset-backed securities (ABS), the so-called mezzanine level. Some countries such as Spain have already expressed their intention to guarantee them if some country of the zone euro did. Spanish economy minister pointed out that securitizations in Spain would not be at a comparative disadvantage. For the time being, not Germany nor France or the Netherlands will grant any collateral to the financial sector.
MADRID | The Corner | Monetary policy is practically exhausted, there is almost no room for fiscal manoeuver due to the excess of indebtment… the only possible move for Spain now is “reforming the reform,” as Barclays’ Alberto Vigil commented on Tuesday. The Paris-based think-tank, who as usual warned about the huge unemployment rate and the deflation risk on Monday, recommended increasing consumer, property, and green taxes, and reducing employer contributions to social security for less-skilled workers.
MADRID | The Corner | Unemployment continues to afflict Spaniards and official figures released on Tuesday added even more pressure on the authorities: 8,700 more jobless people were registered in August, the first rise in unemployment after six months of improvement.
MADRID | The Corner | According to data from the Bank of Spain (BdE), the Spanish balance of payments (BoP current account) showed a surplus of EUR 517 million in June compared to a positive balance of 2.075 billion achieved in the same month of the previous year. June data is the first monthly positive balance this year.
MADRID | The Corner | Santander will issue contingent convertible bonds (CoCos) worth up to 1,500 million euros. In order to reach its aim, the bank will start a road show to sound out the market interest and, in case of suitable conditions, it will start the operation on Monday or Tuesday next week with the collaboration of Credit Suisse, HSBC, JP Morgan, Société Générale and UBS. This issue of CoCos will be the third that the Spanish bank carries out this year, after the issue of 1,5000 million euros in March at an interest rate of 6.25% and another one in May when it sold CoCos worth 1,500 million dollars at 6.375%.
MADRID |The Corner | After a meeting between Mariano Rajoy and Angela Merkel in Santiago de Compostela, the German chancellor gave her support to the candidature of the Spanish Economy Minister, Luis de Guindos, to succeed Jeroen Dijsselbloem as President of the Eurogroup. As Barclays analysts comment, “with Italy’s and France’s leftwing governments and UK in or out of the EU, Spain is now a more attractive partner.” Regarding Germany, Angela Merkel recognised that the crisis in Ukraine is damaging the German economy. Nevertheless, Merkel affirmed that she forecasts a good annual growth if nothing dramatic happens.
MADRID | The Corner | The construction sector in Spain will grow next year by 1% compared to 2014, according to Cesce, a company specialized in credit services and commercial risk management. Thus this growth will change the downward trend that had maintained the sector during the last six years. According to Cesce, the building will boost the sector but the public works and engineering will have to reach the bottom and it will not start to recover until 2016, when it will reach 3% growth YoY.
MADRID | The Corner | Although the eurozone economy in August has become the main focus of investors’ concern, peripheral debt continues to attract them. Yesterday, for the first time in history, the Spanish Treasury 3-months bills traded at negative rates on the secondary market. To date, the Treasury has covered 70% of the expected gross issuance in 2014 of 242,370 million euros, which means a decrease in the average cost of outstanding debt of 14 basis points since December 2013 to stand at 3.59% . However, the Treasury decided yesterday to cancel the auction of bonds and notes scheduled owing to the absence of investors because of the summer season.