Alvise Lennkh & Dennis Shen (Scope Ratings) | Political events in Spain (undecided), Portugal (stable) and Italy (divided) have implications for the three countries, visible in their divergent capacity to reduced the high levels of public debt.
Shaun Riordan | The other oddity of the debate was the almost complete absence of policy. Many commentators have already noted the absence of economic policy from the election campaign. Last night there was no mention of health or the key issue of further reform of the labour market.
Stephanie Kelly (Aberdeen) | The fragmented nature of the Spanish political system makes it unlikely that any party will secure an absolute majority to govern. Therefore, if a government is going to be formed after these elections – something that cannot be taken for granted given the fractured political system – it will be a minority or coalition government.
Shaun Riordan | Unless the polls are dramatically wrong, Pedro Sanchez´ socialist party (PSOE) will be by far the largest party after the Spanish general election on 28 April. Given that, there are three key questions for foreign observers: will the right wing bloc of the Partido Popular (PP), Ciudadanos and Vox secure an absolute majority of seats in the parliament? Will the combined vote of PSOE, the left wing Podemos and the Basque nationalists be sufficient to form a government without the support, active or passive, of the Catalan nationalists? How well will the far-right Vox do?
CaixaBank Research | The Spanish economy has spent four consecutive years growing above the Eurozone average. At the same time, the savings rate has fallen to historic lows. Although this would seem to suggest that households have limited room to manoeuvre in their consumption decisions if the economic context worsens, it is still too soon to draw this conclusion.
Ana Fuentes | Spain and the US are the only developed countries which are going to grow more than 2% in 2019 according to the IMF. On the case of Spain, exports, which were driving the country’s growth, have weakened, but domestic demand has grown. The risk premium is just below 100 basis points, compared to Italy’s 250 b.p. But beyond the data, the analysis is currently conditioned by the effect of the electoral campaign.
Composite and Services PMI, which is elaborated by the consultancy IHS Marlon, exceeded expectations for Spain. The PMI for services rose from 54.5 in February to 56.8 in March compared to the expected 55.
Bankia Estudios | Although the Spanish economy continued generating financing capacity, it finds itself on a downward trend, burdened by the deterioration of the external environment, so that it closed last year at post 2014 lows (1.5% of GDP). The correction of the public deficit has been amply compensated for by the deterioration in the financial position of the private sector, above all of households which, with savings rate at historical lows, have registered financing needs for for the second consecutive year.
Fernando G. Urbaneja | John De Zulueta, President of the Circle of Businessmen, believes that Spanish society should aspire to reduce unemployment to 5%, and argues that this would liberate more than €26 billion for savings and investment, public or private, in short for a greater prosperity.
