Si Europa no es la solución, entonces es el problema
If Europe is not the solution, then the problem is
By: José Ignacio Torreblanca | October 17, 2012
By: José Ignacio Torreblanca | October 17, 2012
.I bring readers a reflection Café Steiner in an article published today in the Financial Times (Europe must show it is the solution Spain) regarding the possibility that Spain asked or not a bailout. In her attempt to change the focus of the debate from "Spain must ask the rescue?" To "what kind of rescue should ask"? She also pointed out the paradox that a country as highly Europeanist as Spain is being suffocated by a Europe committed to implement an austerity policies that do not work nominalist. This is the text, with some additions that have been removed from the English version for space reasons.
For some, he said, the preparations for the rescue request marks the beginning of the end of the crisis. For others, however, the redemption request would trigger a new kind of problems. The question is not therefore whether Spain should ask the rescue, but what kind of rescue will be offered. The risk is that you receive a bailout so clumsy and incompetent as applied in Greece and Portugal, a bailout that has unleashed an economic recessionary spiral led to great social and political fracture.
With unemployment at 25%, the Spanish economy is headed for another year of recession. Despite budget cuts and tax increases, few believe that they can meet the deficit targets for 2012 or even 2013. While awaiting further cuts in pensions, education, health and unemployment, poverty is on the rise among the most vulnerable young people take the path of skilled emigration continue evictions and families, which constitute a social pillar, see their economic resources are depleted.
Financial markets remain closed for the government, interbank lending has dried up and the regional governments are bankrupt. Only exports and Spanish multinational companies offer some hope, but with unemployment in Europe at a record high since the launch of the euro, foreign demand is unlikely to be enough to get the country out of recession.
Spain is under pressure to a triple. From above, the EU insists on further cuts despite evidence that these cuts are precisely those who aborted the nascent economic growth of 2010 and are now leading a new recession. The European institutions and the German government, routinely praise the reforms adopted by the Government. But in the absence of measures to stimulate growth, tax revenues are falling at the same time increase the costs made it impossible to meet the deficit targets. Spain, which came into this crisis with a percentage of debt to GDP is very low (36% in 2007) and a budget surplus (1.9% in 2007) is now with that in the 2013 budget, the interest payment debt is the main budget. But despite the evidence that Spain is in a vicious circle, Brussels message is the same: be patient and keep digging.
Pressure also comes from below at the same tensions and increase social inequalities and citizens poured their anger on the political class. The Popular Party has lost 15 points in voting intentions, squandered the political capital accumulated in eight years of opposition. With the Socialists without being yet ready to take over or benefit from this loss, the next elections draw a map of instability and fragmentation of the vote to the major parties. As the protests of 25-S have shown, in the movement of the "outraged" that the May 15, 2011 occupied the Spanish plazas to request a more representative democracy, begins to lose patience, leading to a possible radicalization of some of its components.
At pressures below and above, joins the side. The Catalans, who have 22 months to be the guinea pigs of the austerity policies account for nearly 850,000 unemployed. Catalonia, which is not only the second richest region in Spain (gross, per capita income is the fourth) but has a strong national identity could decide to separate from Spain, a movement that would surely sooner or accompanied early Basques.
If Spain finally broke, the responsibility would be solely of the Spanish. However, future historians would struggle not to address the role played by the wrong policies of austerity when feeding these separation processes. Of course it would be a great irony that in a country that has built its contemporary democratic identity around the idea of Europe, outside Europe who placed precisely on the precipice.
For decades, the Spanish have lived under the inspiration of the words of Ortega y Gasset "Spain is the problem, Europe the solution". But now the polls are a rude awakening to note that, with only 30% of the Spanish have a positive view of Europe and 28% showing a negative view, Spain is the European country, after Cyprus, where the image of the EU is worse. The Spanish did not rebel against Europe, but they will learn a lot about the disappointment in love.
We definitely need a bailout. But it must be a smart rescue, one that is not obsessed with meeting targets but to provide nominal financial stability that allows structural reforms work, the economy flourish, social divisions and territorial cohesion submit work so that the country remains united . Will the Nobel Prize winner (EU) to rise and thus make wise decisions? Hardly...
もし、欧州が問題を解決できないならば、欧州そのものが問題だ
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