Yet with a suddenness that has taken officials by surprise, economic boom has turned to bust. When the European Central Bank raised interest rates last year, the housing bubble burst.
Higher oil prices also cut disposable income, as well as pushing inflation to a new high of 5.3% in July. And international financial turmoil has caused a credit squeeze at home.
Mr Zapatero points out that so far Spain has fared no worse than several other large European economies, and that the country’s financial system is stronger than that of many of its counterparts: to date, no Spanish bank has got into difficulties.
In an interview for this special report Mr Zapatero conceded that the economy faces a period of stagnation, but insisted that “once calm returns to the international system, we will return to growth without the Spanish economy having suffered structural damage.”
The government forecasts that after a year of almost no growth a recovery will start towards the end of 2009.
This strikes many as far too optimistic. Economists and businesspeople complain that the government was slow to respond to the economy’s swift descent into recession. One of the country’s most experienced bankers reckons that even if the outside world rights itself fairly quickly, recovery will not begin for at least two years.
Some are even more pessimistic, arguing that in addition to the liquidity squeeze and the housing bust Spain suffers from an underlying lack of competitiveness.
The symptoms are a current-account deficit that topped 10% of GDP in the first half of this year and an inflation rate that has been about one percentage point higher than the average for the euro zone for most of the past decade.
Fixing this will not be easy. When recession struck in the past, as it did in the early 1980s and again in 1993, the key to recovery was devaluation. But with Spain in the euro that option is no longer available.
Unless the government rams through structural reforms to make the economy more competitive, the argument goes, adjustment to a harsher economic environment will involve a big rise in unemployment and years of stagnation.
Instead of going into a V-shaped recession, with a swift recovery, the economy could be heading for an L-shaped depression.
Spain’s prosperity is due partly to good luck, in the form of EU entry. But for most of the past 30 years it has also managed its affairs far better than its southern Mediterranean peers have done.
Despite some corruption, particularly in local government, Spanish politics is generally fairly clean. The country’s economy is relatively open and flexible—halfway between Britain and the rest of continental Europe. Economic management has been mostly competent and stable: since 1993 Spain has had just two finance ministers (Italy has had four since 2001 alone).
Mr Solbes, who has held the job since 2004, had an earlier spell in 1993-96 under Mr González before moving on to become the EU’s commissioner for economic and monetary affairs. Under Mr Aznar the incumbent was Rodrigo Rato, who subsequently became the IMF’s boss.
Officials reel off other reasons why Spain is now a different and stronger country than it was when recession last struck. For example, in 1993 the government had a budget deficit of 7% of GDP; in 2007 it had a surplus of 2.2% and public debt was just 36.2% of GDP, down from a peak of 68% in 1996 (compared with Italy’s figure of 104% in 2007 or Britain’s of 44%).
Even more importantly, over the past 15 years a clutch of powerful Spanish multinationals has emerged. In 2000 the Financial Times list of the world’s 500 biggest firms by market capitalisation included only eight from Spain; by 2008 the figure had risen to 14.
A generation of young Spaniards that has grown up knowing nothing but rapid economic growth may now have to contend with unemployment. This will put Spain’s political system, as well as its economy, to its most severe test since the early years of its transition to democracy.
This special report will weigh the country’s strengths and weaknesses and assess its prospects for renewed economic growth. It will argue that Spain can avoid Italy’s fate of seemingly remorseless decline. But there are some grounds for concern in politics.
Miércoles, 25 de noviembre
Grupo Cenyt
Juan Carlos Ureta
Luis Llopis Herbas
Jesús Pérez
Ramón Tamames
Luis C. Sánchez
