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-   -   Spanish politicians approve 15bn-euro austerity plan (https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=220147)

Netto Azure May 27th, 2010 9:31 AM

Spanish politicians approve 15bn-euro austerity plan
 

Quote:


The Spanish parliament has backed a 15bn-euro ($18.4bn; £13bn) austerity package by one vote as the country strives to cut its budget deficit.


The vote saw 169 in favour of the Socialist government's austerity plan and 168 against, with 13 abstentions.
Spain announced the austerity package earlier this month. It includes wage cuts of 5% or more for civil servants and slashes public investment plans.
Spain hopes to rein in its deficit and ease fears of a Greek-style crisis.

'Calming'

A parliamentary defeat would have been a blow to the Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
Spain's programme is intended to reduce a deficit of 11% of GDP to 6% by 2011.
"The result is calming for the markets because a vote against would have been very worrying," said Jose Luis Martinez, a strategist at Citigroup.
"But the small margin is worrying considering what Spain is facing."
'Painful but inevitable' Many Spaniards fear the effect the cuts will have on the economy, where the unemployment rate exceeds 20% - twice the eurozone average.

The country moved out of recession in the first quarter of this year, with growth of 0.1%.
The European Union has been anxious to see more fragile European economies, including Spain, Portugal and Greece, impose tougher austerity measures.
Before the vote, finance minister Elena Salgado had asked politicians to vote in favour, saying the measures were "painful but inevitable".
Well I can see the gloating of those who are against "out of control government spending" right now. But I'm really am getting tired of arguing with economics since one can check that out anytime.

Anyways good luck to the Euro-Zone.

Ivysaur May 27th, 2010 9:45 AM

...oh yay, so it also came to PC. I was a bit tired of arguing about this in the Spanish forum where I hang out :(

Honestly, this is a really long story. Germany, France and the US asked Zapatero to cut the budget to prevent a debt crisis, along with the UK (in a similar debt/deficit level). The problem is, he had been promising he wouldn't cut the welfare budget, and now there wasn't any other option. So he decided to start wage cuts between 2% and 15% for civil servants (15% for the PM, Governors, etc) stop some civil investment and not increase the retirement pays for this year (after last year they had been increased by 2%, when the prices barely increased by 0,9%).

So the left parties complained because they wanted some tax rises (they'll create a new tax for people getting over €100,000 a year, but still there is nothing sure); whereas the conservatives just wanted Zapatero to leave and announce new elections after 2 years from the previous ones. And, if this law hadn't been passed, chances are he would have had to.

The problem is, new elections would make our financial issues even worse, the conservatives just offer changing the Prime Minister, not the policies (and their candidate has even less popular support than Zapatero, even if the party is more likely to get more votes), and some of their leaders are under investigation for seven different crimes, so... yeah. Not a good way to leave the crisis.

And when the EU and other countries support Zapatero and our plan, they complain because "we are losing our sovereignty, and soon the EU will control our laws", as if it wasn't what we agreed to in 1986, when we joined the EU.


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