The extreme left-wing manifesto issued by the Podemos-IU coalition aims, in earnest, to completely change Spain. And it would endow it with a Third World country status. By promising to secure a minimum income close to the current average wage, who on earth would put up with the hardship of working all day long?
Spain depends on Europe, but in a rather odd way, because Europe is a carcass without a head and without any initiative. Europe has left us in doubt over our deficit because we were in an electoral period. And this brutal wear and tear, which has not been good for us, on the contrary, has not ended. After June 27, whatever happens, the government will be even weaker, whichever it is.
Ofelia Marín-Lozano | All the banks have seen a sharp decline in their profitability compared with a decade ago. This is partly due to the heavy provisions made to offset the impact of the property crisis (over 300 billion euros in accumulated terms). But it is also the result of the decrease in pre-provisions operating profit and the requirement for the lenders to raise their capital in line with assets.
The government has designed an infrastructures and housing programme, but not one sector expert or professional believes that Spain will see a return to the level of public works investment of, for example, 2007. The PITVI (The Infrastructure, Transport and Housing Plan), in force until 2024, does not contemplate building large infrastructures but rather maintaining the existing ones.
AXA IM | Four months after the elections, negotiations to form a government officially failed and new elections will be organised on 26 June. However, it remains very unclear that their outcome will be more favourable, though probably conducive to a government as a third round of elections would be a tremendous failure. Fiscal consolidation and Catalonia’s independence will be top priorities.
It’s been two and half years since Spain set up the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsability (AIReF) to oversee the economic targets of the different administrations and the sustainability of the country’s public finances. And now that supervisory organisation, created at Brussels’ request, can be considered as liquidated, after demonstrating its uselessness.
The Spanish Parliament’s Chairman, Mr. López, has bitterly announced that failure to guarantee a coalition government will involve new elections in late June, warning of citizens deep frustration with parties’ inability to reach an agreement. But resorting to fresh elections seems a better prospect than forming a government which is hostage to the extremist policies of the Podemos movement.
On the same day as Spain’s Economy Minister De Guindos announced new economic forecasts, which for some were completely off-the-wall, the government also announced that it will give civil servants back half of the extra payment which was suspended in 2012, worth over 550 million euros.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s spring forecasts – progressively less optimistic – have nurtured the tragic sense of life (the theory expounded by Spain’s Miguel de Unamuno) or the Spanish art of flagellation. Or at least that is what the media headlines reflected, despite the fact that international observers were incapable of detecting any particularly destructive tone in the Washington-based organisation’s predictions.
It’s unheard of Spain’s tourism sector, which many experts said was stagnant and mature ten years ago, has not only massively recovered but continues to beat records from one year to the next in terms of numbers of international tourist arrivals. Since it touched bottom in 2009, with 52.2 million foreign tourists, the sector has not stopped growing any year. In 2015, numbers reached 65 million, up 31% in comparative terms.