Juncal Cuñado Professor of the School of Economics and Business Sciences, University of Navarra. Economics and Business Administration, University of Navarra
Economic uncertainty
The data of the main economic variables leave no room for doubt: an unemployment rate of 18.8 percent (almost double that of the euro zone countries average ), a negative GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009, a public deficit that is expected to increase to 9.8 percent of GDP (when in 2007 the surplus was 2.3 percent), and a public debt that in 2012 will reach a level of 74.3 percent indicate that the outlook for the Spanish Economics is not very positive.
However, there is another variable to be taken into account, which may be even more worrying: the "uncertainty" with which we are living, and which has been shown to be a variable that influences investment fees and, therefore, the growth of countries.
We are living in a moment in which there are more doubts than answers on many questions. For example, when will we get out of the crisis? When will we start to see positive GDP growth fees ? When will we start to create employment? What will happen with the labor market reform? What are the chances that what happened to Greece will happen to us? How will the reform of the pension system affect us? Will we be able to reduce the public deficit and comply with the Austerity Plan? Are the Government's economic policy measures credible?
And it is difficult to be optimistic when institutions such as Standard & Poor's have warned that Spain will not be able to comply with the Stability Pact in 2013 and that the Spanish public deficit will amount to 5 percent of GDP (above the 3 percent proposed by the Government in its austerity plan). If neither these institutions nor the markets believe the Government's policies, how can businessmen and workers believe them? This lack of confidence in the Government's measures and the climate of uncertainty in which citizens, companies and markets are immersed, only delays or impedes the growth of the Spanish Economics .