It’s not a coincidence that Spain and Italy are the biggest debtors in TARGET2 and the most politically unstable. Both have increased their debts with Germany and other countries: Spain from 189.9 billion euros to 319.7 billion. Italy from 188.6 billion to 353.9 billion. Not insignificant amounts.
Spain’s Committee for Competitiveness in Business has had zero influence over this year when the country has been without a government. Set up in 2011 by the heads of the 15 biggest Spanish companies, its aim was to boost the economic recovery and strengthen international investor confidence.
The most important thing is not the fact that Rajoy has been saved, although it is, because he is giving investors and businessmen reasons to still have confidence in Spain. But it is the fact that he has saved the country from the worst case scenario: a return to times of misrule, which in this case would have been even more bloody for the country.
Peter Isackson | The fact-checking is finished, and the polls to determine who won and who lost will soon be wiped from our collective memory. While it lasted, it wasn’t exactly waterboarding but for many it was an unambiguous case of torture. The three debates are over, praise the Lord. America is now entering the brief phase in which it can look back at the weirdest US presidential campaign in history.
Alarm bells are sounding across Europe over the possibility of Spain being a year without a government. Even the international press is calling for an end to the political deadlock in its editorials. But the concern has yet to reach the markets: the day before the start of a new investiture process in Spain, which could end in failure, the country’s risk premium remained below 100 basis points and the Ibex 35 blue-chip index lost hardly any ground, in line with the performance of its European peers.
Until early this year it seemed unlikely that an extreme idea lingering for two decades on the political fringe could turn into a mainstream choice preferred by majority of British voters as happened on June 23. Ukip’s leader Nigel Farage declared victory: he has for decades championed leaving the European Union but that was only half of his political double bill.
via Macropolis | “So, you are here?” said the check-in attendant at Berlin’s Tegel Airport. The man, who appeared to have a Somali background, had a charming smile. His comment was in reference to my British passport and the fact the UK was holding its Leave/Remain referendum on the same day.
The rise in the Ibex 35 in the first few minutes of Monday’s session, when it rose 3% to over 8,000 points could not last. And it didn’t. Half an hour after the market opened, it began its downward spiral once again towards the 7,700 level. It lost over 2% and stayed there almost until the close, with the fall mirrored in the rest of the European exchanges.
Yesterday Spaniards voted again six months after the last general elections on proposals which had changed very little; the only relevant novelty was the integration of Izquierda Unida (IU) and Podemos which in the end turned out to be irrelevant. The new/old left has not gained anything obtaining the same number of seats and votes as in December, when IU ran on its own.
The three big electricity companies in the Ibex 35 index, Iberdrola, Fenosa Gas Naural and Endesa are holding their breath ahead of the outcome of Sunday’s general elections. The years under the PP government have been overall difficult for them and the group, also called the Oligopoly, has a list of outstanding claims and petitions for which a solution will be difficult to find if Spain’s next government is left-wing.