Por muchas razones.

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Las deudas y el déficit español son comparables a la deuda y el déficit francés o italiano.

La cuestión catalana puede comprenderse desde una perspectiva histórica.

La cuestión andaluza puede intentar comprenderse por razones locales.

La cuestión vasca puede interpretarse desde una óptica positiva: la lenta agonía del terrorismo.

Las deudas y el déficit de todas las comunidades autónomas pueden interpretarse como una herencia a corregir.

La corrupción en Andalucía, Valencia, Galicia, Cataluña, etcétera, puede entenderse como una herencia podrida…

Sin embargo, en conjunto, un analista financiero anglosajón o alemán, que contemple con frialdad tal rosario de problemas, puede sacar, me temo, consecuencias simples y brutales:

-Un Estado que “manda” poco y mal.
-Una nube de administraciones públicas que no siempre se entienden entre ellas.
-Una balcanización de los distintos poderes (estatal, regional, local) que complica el saneamiento de las cuentas públicas…

Consecuencias prácticas: España inquieta… a nadie importa que los españoles se tiren ellos solos al pozo negro que prefieran; pero esa irresponsabilidad colectiva afecta automáticamente a la zona euro. Y la prensa financiera más influyente, comenzando por el inevitable Financial Times, teme que la meteorología española esté precipitando nuevos nubarrones para toda la zona euro, justamente:

Just when you thought it was safe to go outside, it turns out that another storm is gathering on the eurozone horizon.

Spain was always on the “one to watch” list. It now finds itself in a vicious circle. The interest rate on its public debt is rising, the economy is stalling and the government is fast losing the enthusiasm to deliver the austerity demanded by Brussels. The process then repeats itself.

Reflecting both the economy’s descent into recession and the significant budget deficit overshoot last year, the government led by Mariano Rajoy recently told Brussels that it was aiming for a budget deficit this year of 5.8 per cent of gross domestic product, rather than the 4.4 per cent agreed earlier. An almighty row then broke out. A compromise target of 5.3 per cent was eventually set.
Even if that is achieved – and with 17 autonomous regional governments in Spain all happily spending away, there is no guarantee – the thorny matter of reducing the deficit further to 3 per cent of GDP in 2013 remains.

For an economy shrinking rapidly, deficit reduction on this scale is not easy. Whatever one thinks about Greece’s initial fiscal problems, they were exacerbated by the subsequent economic collapse. In the autumn of 2010, the International Monetary Fund thought Greece would shrink by 2.6 per cent in 2011. We now know that the economy last year contracted by about 7 per cent. The Greek fiscal position was bad not only because of a lack of effort but also because the economic problems were far bigger than expected.
Major deficit reduction in the wake of economic collapse is near impossible, particularly when the population starts to protest. Spain is preparing for a general strike on March 29. Yet the more it resists deficit reduction, the greater will be the suspicion that the authorities are merely dragging their feet. Perhaps they are hoping for further help from the European Central Bank’s longer-term refinancing operations to push Spanish yields back down. This would save the day for the government, for its banks (now up to their gills in Spanish government debt thanks to the carry trades generated by the first two LTROs) and for the single currency, all without the need for more painful austerity.

Here, then, is the problem. Have Spanish yields risen because investors no longer believe the country is either willing or capable of delivering the austerity? Or is it because investors think the eurozone’s creditor nations – and their acolytes at the European Commission – are running out of patience? Either argument could be used to explain the rise in yields, yet there is a world of difference between deliberate slippage by the Spanish and a loss of confidence among their eurozone partners… Spanish crisis calls for a fiscal union.

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• Españoles 40.000 millones más pobres, víctimas de la deuda.
• Las deudas de España, Italia y Francia son más graves que la deuda griega.

• España y Economía en este Infierno.

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Les Echos, 26 marzo 2012.