The year had to end in Spain with a terrible economic recession and it will end with a possible crisis of the State, in which there is a tooth and nail fight for control of the Constitutional Court. They did not see that coming in the International Monetary Fund and even less in the Bank of Spain. It is amazing to observe how the anxieties of Spain mutate between September and December.
Four months ago, when the course began, the focus was obsessively placed on the risks of economic recession. Recession was a possibility pointed out by different international organizations and his announcement was welcomed with real jubilation by various media and prominent political exponents located in the opposition. We are not exaggerating. There are the newspaper libraries and video libraries. There are archived messages on social networks. There are the headlines of a good part of the Madrid press, today turned into a true visual poem. The professionals of catastrophism, a new variant of political opportunism, were happy at the beginning of September, when the price of gas on the European futures market exceeded 300 euros per megawatt hour.
Spain is today the European Union country with the lowest inflation rate
The recession had to come at the end of the year. There is a week left until Christmas and no one in Spain is talking about a recession. Why? There is no recession. The year ends with economic growth and the forecasts for the coming months are not catastrophic. The economy has held up better than expected (in Spain and in the rest of Europe), thanks to the measures adopted to have enough fuel during the winter, thanks to an autumn of mild temperatures in which less energy has been used, thanks to the savings measures adopted and thanks to certain market correction policies, which in Spain and
Portugal have resulted in the so-called ‘Iberian cap’ on the price of gas used to manufacture electricity. No one in Spain doubts the effectiveness of this measure anymore. Economic policy and meteorology have prevented a recession that not a few believed entirely inevitable.
Actions have been taken. In short, adversity has been ruled. Thanks to the containment of energy prices, Spain is today the European Union country with the lowest inflation rate. The escalation of prices mainly affects food and this especially punishes people with less purchasing power. The catastrophic scenario that some hoped for has been avoided, but the situation remains worrisome and uncertain, since it largely depends on the evolution of the war in Ukraine. Spain is still on edge, no one knows what winter 2023/2024 will be like, but the recession has not occurred. The vacuum produced by the unfulfilled prophecy has been filled by a monumental political row. We no longer talk about the price of gas and gasoline. Today we are talking about a scary political dialectic.
Why? Why does Spain continue to wander through history under the sign of tragedy even though things are going somewhat better than expected?
Why does December end with such a different agenda from September? Why are the same people who predicted a great recession the ones who are now shouting the most in Parliament?
There are various causes and we could summarize them as follows: there seems to be nostalgia for the recession that has not arrived.
There was a time when the loop we are in today could have been changed. In this week’s video-blog we explain what that moment was, two months ago now.
