It's a thin thread, that of trust. Spain and Italy look in the mirror, victims of their own political instability and waves of scandals, and perhaps they have to wonder if that thread hasn't really snapped.
A change in economic sentiment, the first since the beginning of the year, and that a hill of trust painstakingly built up in the last few months, provisions for a long winter, is crumbling, revealing the friability of its nature. Houses of cards are not durable goods and political uncertainties are once again shaking the debt markets. The spread between ten-year BTPs and their German counterparts drops beyond the "Monti quota", at 288 points, while the yield reaches 4,52%. In the same way it widens the Bonos/Bund differential, which stands at 386 points for a rate of 5,47%, with the Madrid Stock Exchange losing 3,77% yesterday. Hence the MPS scandal and the "Berlusconi effect". From there, the political earthquake that is overwhelming Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
A scandal that has spread like wildfire, the Spanish one, the result of an investigation into black funds that already last year had involved the treasurer of the Partido Popular Luis Barcenas, but who only crossed the threshold of central power last Thursday . That is to say Rajoy, accused, together with other members of the PP, of having pocketed black moneypocket money of 25 euros a year, plus other expenses, paid from 1997 to 2008, obtained from the scientific division of bribes paid by companies, especially construction companies, to the local administrations of the PP.
The alleged accounting book of the Partido popular published by El Pais last Thursday even the prime minister, hitherto immaculate, nails it for the first time, revealing the corruption epidemic of an entire apparatus. The socialists, led by Alfredo Rubacalba, are demanding immediate resignations and new elections. A prospect that threatens to block the path of reforms undertaken by Spain in the bud and that frightens the markets, but which is reflected in the protest of a people brought to their knees by cuts and unemployment (which has reached a monstrous 26%, literally one in four) and which finds itself facing, once again, a murky and mud-stained political class.
In recent days, Prime Minister Rajoy has strongly denied any involvement in the deal, announcing his intention to publish his tax return online, and decisively rejecting any hypothesis of resignation. He did it yesterday too, in front of half the world's media, during the extraordinary meeting of his party, defending his honor in a heartfelt speech: “I didn't decide to make politics my job to make money. In fact, I lost money." Words hanging by a thread, too, waiting to know if the papers disclosed by El Pais are authentic.
Meanwhile, Spain and Italy look in the mirror and find themselves equal. Their fragile foundations are undermined by an inadequate political class and by a corruption that becomes an epidermis. Problems that have much deeper roots than their solutions. On the other hand, the markets, watching from afar, wondering if, and how, it is possible to trust these countries.
