Fernando G. Urbaneja | A short list of urgent and possible reforms to regenerate and modernise Spanish democracy would include improving the quality and reputation of state institutions, especially the administration of justice and those entities described as independent, with the Bank of Spain at the front of the queue.
Joan Tapia (Barcelona) | BBVA says that Spain could grow 2.4% this year (it grew 2.5% in 2018) and 2% in 2020. This would create 800,000 jobs over the two years and unemployment would fall to 12.6% (compared to 15.3% in 2018). Yet, BBVA also warns that the probability of an accident has increased. Spain’s public debt is 12 points above the eurozone average, around 100% of GDP. Moreover, the Catalan situation is explosive as it represents 16% of the population and 19% of GDP.
House sales have been posting double-digit figures for the past three years, there is strong growth in construction and prices are clearly on the up. What will the future bring? As explained in the next report from Caixabank Research, this positive trend is expected to continue in the sector, both because of the Spanish economy’s good performance and also the healthy state of the industry itself.
The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC in its acronym in Spanish) is processing a circular so that all energy companies which supply electricity, gas and hydrocarbons meet six ratios which constrain their level of debt and dividends in relations to the volume of assets, cash flow, EBITDA or financial costs.
According to the National Institute of Statistics, the unemployment rate at the end of 2018 was 14.45%, 2.1 percentage points less than in 2017 and its lowest level for 10 years. For its part, employment grew by 566,200 people in 2018, almost 3% more than 2017, securing its fifth consecutive annual increase and the largest increase since 2006, when 686,200 jobs were created in Spain.
The three main Spanish electricity companies (Endesa, Iberdrola and Naturgy) have reached agreement in principle with the Ministry of Ecological Transition to close the nuclear plants in Spain. In this way, the closure of the active plants would be scaled, so that they would close their operations gradually between 2025 and 2035.
Juan Carlos Martínez Lázaro in The Conversation | The 2019 budget is very well designed from a political point of view, as it is a tool for prolonging the legislature. More questionable is that this budget will be a tool for “driving productivity and strengthening solid growth”. Many more things would be needed to transform the Spanish productive model which, although it hurts us, remains the same as what we had before the crisis.
Miguel Navascués | The perception only that pensioners and health spending have lost purchasing power in Spain is not altogether true. We can see this in the data.The UK has a level of public spending per capita only 3% higher, the US 13% and Spain 15% (excluding interest).
The ratings agency Standard & Poors predicts more mergers among medium sized Spanish banks. S&P also 2019 toxic assets on the balance sheets will continue to be reduced and that the main challenge will remain improving profit margins which remain at historic lows. In fact it is this low profitability which will drive consolidation this year which will help achieve synergies, economies of scale and cost cutting.