A juicio de la France Press, JLR Zapatero “está a la defensiva”, acosado por las malas perspectivas económicas.
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La agencia francesa avanza estas razones:
Spain’s Socialist government is on the defensive just two months ahead of a general election that polls show will be closely fought following the publication last week of weak economic data.
Spanish inflation accelerated to the fastest pace in more than a decade in December while the number of jobless workers rose for its third consecutive month, official figures published Thursday showed.
The number of unemployed rose 5.2 percent in 2007 over the previous year to 2,129,547 people, with the slowdown in the building sector leading to a sharp rise in benefit claims by construction workers, the labour ministry said.
The annual inflation rate, led by higher food and energy costs, meanwhile hit 4.3 percent in December, its highest yearly reading since 1997, according to the national statistics institute.
«The economic crisis has broken out,» right-wing daily newspaper ABC said Friday on its front page.
The leader of the opposition conservative Popular Party, Mariano Rajoy, vowed Friday to quickly unveil a package of economic reforms aimed at «reviving the economy» if he is elected on March 9.
«The government has stood still for more than three years and unfortunately now we are suffering the consequences,» he told reporters during a visit to the central city of Guadalajara.
Polls show Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s Socialists, elected in March 2004 shortly after the Madrid train bombings that claimed 191 lives, have a slim lead over the Popular Party.
But a poll published Friday in right-leaning daily newspaper El Mundo found that Spaniards are evenly split on the question of which party is better equiped to handle the economy.
One in two people in Spain, or 49.7 percent, believe the economy will be worse in 2008 than last year, the Sigma Dos poll found.
The Socialists remain upbeat about the state of the Spanish economy, predicting it will still grow next year at a faster rate than the European Union average.
«We can face with optimism the future of the Spanish economy, which is not at all in a phantasmagoric crisis as announced by the bad omens and prophets of doom of the Popular Party,» said the Socialist parliamentary spokesman, Diego Lopez Garrido.
Late last year the government cut its economic growth forecast for 2008 to 3.1 percent after predicting an expansion of 3.3 percent in July.
Others are not as optimistic.
The Washington-based International Monetary Fund lowered its growth projection for Spain for 2008 to 2.7 percent, the slowest pace since 2002, from 3.4 percent. It estimates the economy expanded by 3.7 percent in 2007.
Spain’s jobless rate hit 7.95 percent in the second quarter, its lowest level since the fourth quarter of 1978, but inched up to 8.03 percent in in the third quarter.
The national statistics institute will publish fourth quarter jobless figures on January 25.
Last month Zapatero said his Socialist government would create up to two million new jobs if it is re-elected in March and predicted Spain’s public surplus would represent 1.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2007, the same level as in the previous year.
Spain is only one of a handful of EU nations to post a public surplus. The government argues its existence has allowed it to expand spending on social benefits such as rent subsidies for youths and higher old age pensions. [AFP, 5 /6 ene. 07. Weak economic data puts Spanish govt on defensive ahead of election].
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