A paso de carga…
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Crisis que Financial Times anuncia con una precisión quirúrgica:
-El déficit público no baja. Y corre el riesgo de crecer de manera inquietante.
-Las peticiones de “flexibilidad” españolas no engañan a nadie, en Europa.
-Fracaso del Estado, las comunidades autónomas y los municipios, incapaces de respetar los compromisos colectivos.
-Ninguna familia política española parece capaz de imponer el rigor que devolviese una credibilidad colectiva que se está evaporando.
Rajoy, Sánchez, Rivera e Iglesias suman incertidumbre oceánica.
Incertidumbre y chalaneo político costarán decenas de miles de millones a los contribuyentes.
España, 17 modelos de fragmentación económica.
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FT, 14 / 15 febrero 2016.
Yawning budget hole awaits Spain’s new PM
Tobias Buck in Madrid and Jim Brunsden in Brussels
The name of the next Spanish prime minister will remain unknown for at least several more weeks. The first challenge facing the new leader, however, is clear: a yawning hole in the government budget that will force Madrid to seek emergency talks with Brussels on day one.
According to the latest European Commission forecast, Spain will report a budget deficit of 4.8 per cent of gross domestic product for last year and 3.6 per cent this year. Both numbers are well above the budget targets set by Brussels, and suggest a shortfall of at least €8bn this year alone.
No other country in the eurozone has strayed further off course than Spain — a fiscal failure that has darkened the country’s image as the bloc’s economic comeback kid. Analysts and officials in Madrid agree that Spain has little chance of meeting the targets agreed with the commission — which call for a deficit of 2.8 per cent of GDP this year. Spain has been without a proper government since December, when an inconclusive general election delivered a deeply fragmented parliament that is also notably more leftwing than the previous one.
No matter what government eventually emerges from the current round of coalition talks, further austerity measures will be hard to implement. “You have the makings of a really big problem here,” says Juan Rubio-Ramírez, a public finance expert and professor of economy at Duke University in the US. “The next government will have to go to Brussels and ask for a delay to the deficit adjustment. And they will have to say: it’s either that or the country will go for new elections.”
Prime minister Mariano Rajoy made clear last week that even his administration — which pushed through harsh austerity measures at the height of the crisis — now wants the commission to soften its stance. “Spain has to keep following the road map . . . but it could also use the flexibility that European law allows,” he said. At least in public, his appeal met a frosty response from senior eurozone officials. “I think the commission has been quite clear on the Spanish budget . . . More measures are needed to get back on track and that is an obligation that needs to be fulfilled, probably by the new government,” said Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of the eurogroup, which brings together the finance ministers of the single currency zone.
The plea for more fiscal leeway is likely to grow especially pronounced if the new Spanish government is based on an alliance between the centre-left Socialists and the anti-austerity Podemos movement. Both have promised an immediate package of measures to alleviate social hardship and inequality in Spain, and both have railed against the previous government’s austerity policy during the recent financial crisis. Pedro Sánchez, the Socialist leader, is tasked with forming a new government — though it remains unclear whether he can muster enough support from other parties for his bid. According to the Socialists’ government programme, a new administration should launch talks with Brussels to agree a “gradual, realistic and balanced path” towards bringing the Spanish deficit below 3 per cent of GDP.
That goal is achievable next year but not — as initially promised by the Rajoy government — in 2016, according to the Socialists. Whether Brussels can ultimately be persuaded to wait another year remains an open question. But some budget experts argue the focus on annual objectives and deviations is misguided. The broader problem for Spain, they say, is that the structural gap between public revenues and expenditure continues to be unsustainably high — meaning the budget is far from being balanced even in a year like 2016, when the economy is growing strongly.
Spain’s independent fiscal authority, known by its Spanish acronym Airef, believes the country’s structural deficit stands at about 2.5 per cent of GDP. José Luis Escrivá, the president of Airef, points out that the Rajoy government made a “considerable fiscal effort over the last few years”, but warns that Spain continues to suffer from a “credibility deficit concerning the sustainability of its public finances”.
Prof Rubio-Ramírez argues that Spain — for all the economic progress made over the past three years — remains vulnerable. “If the world economy slows down, and the Spanish economy slows down with it, we could easily be hitting a budget deficit of 6 or 7 per cent of GDP again.” The political margin for new measures to close the deficit, though, is shrinking fast. “All of these things have a very high political cost. Even the [Mr Rajoy’s] PP, has shied away from new measures this past year. And they had an absolute majority.”
Las negritas son mías.
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