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Analysts warn Spanish right powerless to halt crisis
 [Dawn] Despite a thumping election win, Spain's right is powerless in the face of a sovereign debt crisis battering the entire eurozone, analysts warned on Monday.The decisive power, they said, lies with the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... . Financial markets were unimpressed by the victory for 56-year-old conservative leader Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party, which secured the biggest winning margin in its history. On Friday, Rajoy had pleaded in vain with the markets for a breathing space of "at least half an hour" to confront the crisis. The big problem for Spain is the deficit, said Edward Hugh, independent economist based in Catalonia. The conservatives have vowed to implement harsh austerity measures to meet Spain's promise of cutting the public deficit from 9.3 of gross domestic product last year to 4.4 per cent of GDP in 2012. "Rajoy is obviously going to address the issue," Hugh said. "The problem is how he can do it because Spain is going into recession now, not an expansion, so cutting savagely now really only sends the Spanish economy off in the direction of where Portugal is," he added. "Spain has got all the problems it had; none of them has been resolved."Spain cannot resolve the crisis and repair the damaged balance sheets of its banks without help from the European Central Bank, Hugh said. "It is not unreasonable that market participants start to question how deep the German commitment to maintain the euro really is when it comes to putting money on the table," he said. "Until they put some money on the table this is not going to stop." Financial markets were not reacting to the election after months of opinion pols predicting the ruling Socialists' defeat, said Soledad Pellon, analyst at IG markets. Posted by: Fred 2011-11-22 |
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