After the restructuring Santander carried out in Spain in 2016, the bank could be planning to improve efficiency in other countries, including Germany. Although the project is in an initial phase, it would obtain cost savings of about 15%.
Spain can’t imitate Germany in a context in which Europe is a closed zone where countries export to each other. And Spain is unlikely to become another Germany because the Spanish production model is still based on low productivity.
Brussels has warned Germany about its excessive current account surplus. The procedure for detecting macroeconomic imbalances has revealed the average current account surplus between 2013 and 2015 was 7.5% compared with an alarm threshold of 6%.
“…One of the reasons for the high level of youth unemployment in Spain has to do with the fact that companies hardly get involved in the dual training system,” explains Hermann Simon the chairman of Simon-Kucher, the preferred consultancy firm of the “hidden champions,” those German mid-cap companies which compete globally. “Spain’s level of innovation is very weak…the whole country cannot live just off tourism services.”
Germany’s external trade figures are an insult for the EU and the euro- it reaches the incredible figure of 300 billion euros, or 9% of GDP. It doesn’t look like the US would be too unhappy about getting rid of the single currency, with the help of Le Pen and others.
Jens Bastian via Macropolis | As various countries in the European Union prepare for watershed elections in the course of 2017, analysts at www.macropolis.gr will be discussing the implications of these elections and the issues most likely to impact the electoral agendas. We start off with a look at Germany and its strong bilateral (economic) ties with Russia.
“What is clear is that Greece cannot pay its debt and will never pay it. There needs to be an acquittance. And European legislation does not allow for waivering of debt. What they are going to do now, and it should have been done seven years ago, is to modify the conditions in such a way that the debt will be practically waivered,” says Spanish economist Fernando Eguidazu, as he leaves his Foreign Office post of Secretary of State for the European Union.
Germany’s enormous trade surplus is causing resentment throughout the rest of Europe, which accounts for a little over half of the annual surplus of more than €263.1 billion. Brussels and the IMF believe there is room to raise salaries and, above all, for a substantial increase in public investment.
“In principal, the euro is a good idea. The aim is to create a big economic space without any monetary barriers, like the US. But a common space implies that member states are prepared to take each other into consideration as far as their economic, financial and wage policies are concerned,” says Peter Bofinger, one of the five ‘wise men’ who make up the German Council of Economic Experts.
Spanish midcap CAF has won a €51.3 million contract in Germany to supply 9 three-car light rail vehicles for the Schönbuchbahn and their maintenance over 19 years, with the option to request up to an additional 19 trains. The contract will strengthen CAF’s position and reputation in a key strategic market niche.