Joan Clos, former alcalde of Barcelona and former Spanish Minister of Industry in the Zapatero Government, says that Spain "can do it even without aid". After all, underlined in the corridors of Villa d'Este during the European House Ambrosetti, "the Rajoy government has made a solemn promise to the voters: not to ask for the support of the EU".
Statements are of course one thing, reality another. Spain has been in check for months, asphyxiated by the pressure of the international markets. The economy goes down, unemployment goes up. Luckily the Latin American side is holding up and big groups like Telefonica, Endesa and Banco Santander breathe a sigh of relief.
The feeling is that in addition to the economic policy errors of the last 20 years (easy credit, too much real estate, little innovation), Spain is paying the imbalance of a federal system which has acquired too much autonomy with respect to the central government and has become unmanageable. In the sense that the transfers from the autonomies to the Madrid government have dangerously reduced.
But there is more. The management of the Regions, without respecting the parameters relating to debt, deficit, expenditure, was in many cases more than cheerful. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the knots have come home to roost and that autonomies such as Catalonia, Andalusia, Murcia have asked for help from the state. In the case of Catalonia it was a real shock, given that it is one of the most industrialized and once the richest regions of the Peninsula. In addition to the fact that with the crisis, Catalonia's hopes of becoming a real country in its own right (even if only the most radical separatists believed it) were destroyed.
For Joan Clos federalism is not condemned. We have to believe in it and maybe adapt it to the new reality of things. More he does not say and does not unbutton. And it is well understood given that his generation of politics was the one that most pushed for a total freedom of political and economic action of the autonomies.
It's hard to say what developments will be and whether Rajoy's people will continue to have the minimum consensus that will allow him to govern. An important test will be that of the next elections in Galicia. The litmus test to understand if the disaffection and protest of the people will also fall on the premier. Especially since Galicia, the westernmost region of Spain, is home to important industrial groups, such as the world clothing leader Zara.
