| | ‘Bailout’ seems to be the hardest word for Spain’s prime ministerby OzHouse |
Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer drives through a red light with his eyes closed and says - "If I can't see it, it's not a crime" ?That is what is happening here except this isn't a comedy.
More and more people in Spain say they fear our government is not telling us the truth. I fear worse: I'm worried the government really believes what it says.If you were in Spain on Sunday, you could be forgiven for thinking that the economic crisis was over and that Spain, in particular, had sorted out all its financial woes overnight. What was seen all over the world as a dramatic eleventh hour bailout deal to save the Spanish banking system from an imminent collapse was presented by Madrid as merely "a soft loan" on the "most favourable terms". To hammer home this preposterous sense of normality, prime minister Mariano Rajoy decided that it was better to disappear from our sight. He left it to the minister of economy to inform us Spaniards that they were now the proud owners of a debt worth €100bn. A trifle, no doubt.Even when the outpouring of outrage forced Rajoy to call a hasty press conference the next day, he still refused to use the word "bailout" – or any other word for that matter – and referred mysteriously to "what happened on Saturday". He went as far as to say that Spain's emergency had been "resolved" ("thanks to my pressure", he said). He then took a plane to Poland to watch the national football team play ("the players deserve my presence").In the end Spain, the favourite, drew with Italy, an event Rajoy probably refers to as "what happened on Sunday".
The EU officials have selected Spain as their next whipping boy. They condemn Spain without an idea of what to do if she refuses to submit.
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