“My government’s ambition is to make this an innovative, creative, entrepreneurial country while upholding the social welfare state… I think we should learn the lesson of the Great Depression: when an economy enters a deep recession, the only way we can come out of it is from a big push from the public sector.” José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero uttered these words less than a year ago. At the time, with Spain mired in recession, critics could argue with his ideological stance, but nobody could doubt his convictions. However, the prime minister’s announcement on May 12 of a broad and radical raft of austerity measures has seen him perform the biggest U-turn of his six years in government … [Read more...] about The market tears up Zapatero’s social contract
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Not yet a Greek tragedy, but still a Spanish drama
“Complete insanity” is how Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero summed up speculation that his government had approached the International Monetary Fund to request a €280-billion bailout. “These rumours can increase differences and hurt the interests of our country, which is simply intolerable and of course we intend to fight it,” he told reporters in Brussels ahead of an emergency summit among leaders of countries using the euro currency. The IMF also denied the speculation. The rumours that Spain was looking for help started circulating after the European Union and the IMF agreed on Sunday to the first bailout of a euro-zone country, giving Greece a €110-billion loan over … [Read more...] about Not yet a Greek tragedy, but still a Spanish drama
Waiting for Washington
The announcement that US Vice President Joe Biden would be visiting Madrid on May 7-8 as part of a short European tour was a welcome piece of news for the Spanish government and further proof of the positive relationship it enjoys with the current administration in Washington. The visit was scheduled to follow the meeting between Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington the previous week. Just three months earlier, Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was in the US capital himself, attending the National Prayer Breakfast as President Barack Obama’s guest, an event that followed a meeting between the two men at the White … [Read more...] about Waiting for Washington
Garzón, the PP, and a Byzantine justice system
As growing numbers of people around the world will know by now, investigating magistrate Baltasar Garzón is in hot water. The man best-known for having ordered the arrest of Augusto Pinochet in 1998 is being investigated by his colleagues in the Supreme Court on three counts. If found guilty, his career will be over. There is something of a whiff of conspiracy about this sudden fall from grace. The first investigation is into accusations that he dropped tax fraud charges against executives of Banco Santander in return for $302,000-worth of sponsorship by the bank for a series of lectures on human rights he gave at New York University in 2003. This hearing is currently underway. The … [Read more...] about Garzón, the PP, and a Byzantine justice system
FARC, ETA and Al Qaeda: the terror connection
When the US Drug Enforcement Administration announced in December that it had arrested three suspected Al Qaeda operatives in Ghana and brought them to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges, investigators unveiled some astonishing allegations. The defendants had offered to help rebels of South America’s oldest active guerrilla front, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), traffic cocaine into Spain using North African routes. While there had been speculation regarding such a connection in the past, this was the first time US law enforcement authorities had linked the dots between Islamic extremists and the FARC in a criminal indictment. Then in early March, … [Read more...] about FARC, ETA and Al Qaeda: the terror connection
March 11’s divisive legacy
In the middle of February, the Spanish government announced that it was going to “repair” the memory of the poet Miguel Hernández, a Republican former goatherd who was jailed by the dictator Francisco Franco and died in prison in 1942, at the age of 31. The Socialist government pledged to offer Hernández, whose centenary is being celebrated this year, “the tribute, the memory and the admiration that his work merits,” said Deputy Prime Minister María Teresa Fernández de la Vega. “We all share that same rejection of any form of oppression, that same rebellion in the face of injustice and that determination to dream and create a decent country and a better world.” The news of this homage … [Read more...] about March 11’s divisive legacy
Time to end Spain’s labour market apartheid
Take a look at a crowded street in any Spanish city and you will see two classes of workers. You won’t be able to distinguish them by their clothes, their skin colour or their schooling. But when they show up for work, receive their payslips at the end of the month or think about their future, they are very different. One group, let’s call them the fijos, feel more secure and more confident. With fixed contracts from their employers, they know they can’t be laid off easily - or cheaply - even in the current recession-bound economy. They don’t have to worry about their bosses renewing their contracts every month, every six months or every year. They may get training to advance their … [Read more...] about Time to end Spain’s labour market apartheid
Navigating the impossible?
For someone who sets such great store by being photographed alongside the right people, January 28 was a fairly awful day for the Spanish prime minister. At the Davos World Economic Forum, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was pictured sitting between Greece’s Giorgos Papandreou and Latvia’s Valdis Zatlers. The inference was clear: Spain was in the same boat as Greece, which the EU has now agreed to help resolve its enormous public financing problems, and Latvia, which has Europe’s highest unemployment rate at nearly 23 percent. Much was made of the gaff by Zapatero’s handlers, who failed to put him in more reassuring company. But it was only the beginning of a perfect economic and political … [Read more...] about Navigating the impossible?
Saving the pension system
For many years politicians, economists and demographers have been nervously watching a slowly ticking economic and social time-bomb. It is set to detonate – depending on your calculations – sometime after 2025 as an aging population and shrinking workforce combine with explosive effect, undermining the financial foundations of the Spanish pension system and rupturing the welfare state. Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who might like to imagine himself as a Hollywood action hero putting his life on the line to cut the red wire and defuse the bomb, has decided to risk his political future to reform the pension system and soften the retirement blow to today's and tomorrow's … [Read more...] about Saving the pension system
Catalonia, immigration and populism
The attorney general’s announcement on January 20 that plans by the Catalan town of Vic to stop registering undocumented immigrants on its census were unlawful appeared to bring the furore surrounding the case to a close. After an outcry on the part of immigrant and human rights groups, Joaquin de Fuentes Bardají insisted that any immigrant should be able to register in their local municipality with just a passport (a visa or other documents being unnecessary) and therefore gain access to health and education services. But while Vic now appears unlikely to push ahead with its controversial initiative, this town of less than 40,000, just under a quarter of whom are migrants, has managed … [Read more...] about Catalonia, immigration and populism