Economy of Spain

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Spain
SpainSpain
currency Euro (EUR)
Trade
organizations 		EU , WTO , OECD
Key figures
Gross domestic
product (GDP) 		€ 1,163.7 billion (nominal) (2017)
€ 1,242.0 billion (PPP) (2016)
GDP per capita 25,000 € (nominal) (2017)
GDP by economic sector Agriculture: 2.6%
Industry: 23.2%
Services: 74.2%
(2017, estimated)
growth   + 3.2% (2016)
inflation rate 0.3% (2016)
Employed 17.777 million (2012, estimate)
Employed persons by economic sector Agriculture: 4.2%
Industry: 24%
Services: 71.7%
(2009, estimated)
Activity rate 38% (real, 2012)
Unemployment rate 16.7% (Nov. 2017)
Foreign trade
export € 255.4 billion (2015)
Export partner France 18.2%
Germany 10.4%
Portugal 8.1%
Italy 8.1% (2011)
import € 281.3 billion (2015)
Import partner Germany 12.6%
France 11.5%
Italy 6.9%
China 6% (2011)
Foreign trade balance −31.8 billion € (2012)
public finances
Public debt 98.3% of GDP (2017)
Government revenue 37.9% of GDP (2017)
Government spending 41.0% of GDP (2017)
Budget balance −3.1% of GDP (2017)

The economy of Spain is the twelfth largest economy in the world. The most important economic sectors are tourism, communication and information technology, the metal processing industry, mechanical engineering, agriculture and petrochemicals. The most important export and import partners are France and Germany .

In the Global Competitiveness Index , which measures a country's competitiveness, Spain ranks 34th out of 137 countries (2017-18). In 2017, Spain ranks 69th out of 180 countries in the Economic Freedom Index .

Economic indicators

Various macroeconomic indicators of the Spanish economy from 1980 to 2017. All GDP values ​​are given in euros.

year GDP
(in billion euros) 		GDP per capita
(in euros) 		GDP growth
(real) 		Inflation rate
(in percent) 		Unemployment rate
(in percent) 		Public debt
(in% of GDP)
1980 99.0 2,627   1.2%   15.6% 11.0% 16.6%
1981   112.8   2,967   −0.4%   14.5%   13.8%   20.0%
1982   129.6   3,390   1.2%   14.4%   15.8%   25.1%
1983   147.9   3,851   1.7%   12.2%   17.2%   30.3%
1984   165.7   4,299   1.7%   11.3%   19.9%   37.1%
1985   184.7   4,775   2.4%   8.8%   21.3%   42.1%
1986   210.6   5,429   3.4%   8.8%   20.9%   43.3%
1987   235.1   6,046   5.7%   5.2%   20.2%   43.1%
1988   260.8   6,693   5.3%   4.8%   19.2%   39.6%
1989   292.5   7,491   5.0%   6.8%   17.2%   41.0%
1990   326.1   8,337   3.8%   6.7%   16.2%   42.5%
1991   357.9   9.126   2.5%   5.9%   16.3%   43.1%
1992   385.4   9,795   0.9%   7.1%   18.4%   45.4%
1993   401.7   10.177   −1.3%   4.6%   22.6%   56.2%
1994   425.9   10,761   2.3%   4.7%   24.1%   58.7%
1995   458.5   11,559   4.1%   4.7%   22.9%   63.4%
1996   485.9   12,219   2.4%   3.6%   22.0%   67.5%
1997   516.7   12,961   3.9%   1.9%   20.6%   66.2%
1998   553.2   13,827   4.5%   1.8%   18.6%   64.2%
1999   594.7   14,787   4.7%   2.2%   15.6%   62.5%
2000   646.2   15,935   5.0%   3.5%   13.6%   58.0%
2001   699.5   17,160   4.0%   3.6%   10.5%   54.2%
2002   749.3   18,088   2.9%   3.1%   11.5%   51.3%
2003   803.5   19,041   3.2%   3.0%   11.5%   47.6%
2004   861.4   20,099   3.2%   3.0%   11.0%   45.3%
2005   930.6   21,313   3.7%   3.4%   9.2%   42.3%
2006   1,007.9   22,722   4.2%   3.5%   8.4%   38.9%
2007   1,080.8   23,893   3.8%   2.8%   8.2%   35.5%
2008   1,116.2   24,275   1.1%   4.1%   11.2%   39.4%
2009   1,079.0   23,272   −3.6%   −0.3%   17.9%   52.7%
2010   1,080.9   23.215   0.0%   1.8%   19.9%   60.1%
2011   1,070.4   22.904   −1.0%   3.2%   21.4%   69.5%
2012   1,039.8   22,324   −3.0%   2.4%   24.8%   85.7%
2013   1,025.7   22.014   −1.7%   1.4%   26.1%   95.5%
2014   1,037.8   22,340   1.4%   −0.1%   24.4%   100.4%
2015   1,080.0   23,271   3.4%   −0.5%   22.0%   99.4%
2016   1,118.5   24,107   3.3%   −0.2%   19.6%   98.9%
2017   1,163.6   25.115   3.1%   2.0%   17.2%   98.4%

Spanish company

See also: List of the largest companies in Spain

The typical sectors with large Spanish companies in 2011 were banks, with the leading banks Banco Santander , the second largest financial institution in Europe, and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria , with a focus on Spain, Portugal and Central and South America. Another typical branch is the construction industry with Grupo ACS and Ferrovial at the top. Large sole proprietorships are the telecommunications group Telefónica , the utilities Iberdrola and Gas Natural , the insurance company Mapfre , the infrastructure company Abertis and the textile company Inditex .

Economic structure

tourism

Tourism is an important economic factor for Spain. According to the World Tourism Organization of the United Nations (UN) almost 75 million tourists traveled in 2016 to Spain. On average, they spent around EUR 800, leaving around EUR 60 billion in the country.

Agriculture

Spain has the largest vineyard area in the world, with roughly the same amount of red and white wine being produced. Today it is still one of the largest agricultural producers in Western Europe. Eleven percent of the workforce is employed in agriculture. The main agricultural products are wheat, barley, sugar beet, corn, potatoes, rye, oats, rice, grapes, tomatoes and onions. Spain has extensive wine-growing areas as well as citrus and olive groves.

Economic history

Gross national product per capita, 1900 to 2003

Second Spanish Republic and Civil War

From 1931 to 1939, slightly less than half of the population was employed in the agricultural sector. Industry had only developed in Catalonia (textile and metalworking industry), in the Basque Country ( coal and steel industry and shipbuilding) and in the mining communities (e.g. Minas de Riotinto (copper), Almadén (mercury)). The Altos Hornos de Vizcaya (AHV) iron and steel company, which was formed in 1902 from a merger of three companies, was the largest company in Spain when it was founded. It was located in the immediate vicinity of the iron ore deposits there and the port of Bilbao . In Barcelona, ​​at that time already a metropolis of over a million, the world exhibition took place in 1929/30, the Exposició Internacional de Barcelona .

The Spanish economy was not directly affected by the Great Depression of 1929, but the situation was characterized by unemployment (around 10%) and many strikes. In rural southern Spain, the situation for the farm workers was hopeless. In 1934 strikes broke out in many Spanish regions. B. the Asturian miners strike . The strikes were also a reaction to the election victory of right-wing parties after a coalition of left and republican parties won in 1931. Up to two thousand strikers lost their lives in the crackdown by troops from Spanish Morocco . In the spring of 1936 the electoral alliance supported by left and liberal politicians won the Frente Popular , but in the summer of 1936 civil war broke out.

During the civil war, the anarcho-syndicalist union CNT had de facto control in Catalonia , with the industrial center of Barcelona , and in large parts of Aragon . These included the armaments production factories managed by the workers themselves , almost all of Catalan agricultural production, the public transport system and large parts of the service sector.

Franquism

During the time of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939–1975) (see also: Franquism ), Spanish economic policy aimed to become independent of imports and exports until the early 1950s. The reasons for this policy were the desire to keep Franco's Spain out of World War II, and in the postwar period it was the poor political relations with the victorious powers. There were also reasons within Spain, such as the political stabilization of the dictatorship. In the 1950s, or 1959 at the latest, a new economic policy took hold. Based on the French model of being more open to foreign investments and trade with important economic partners, an economically successful period began for Spain in which the country began to catch up with the rest of Europe.

Striving for self-sufficiency

The Instituto Nacional de Industria (INI) founded in 1941 was an important industrial policy instrument . With this state holding company, the government pushed the industrialization of Spain by setting up subsidiaries in mining, energy and gas supply, the oil industry, metal production, vehicle and aircraft construction, shipbuilding, the fertilizer sector and other industries. Other instruments were high protective tariffs and prescribed maximum prices. With the Instituto Nacional de Colonización founded in 1939 , an institution was created that bought up land in order to create new agricultural settlements there. The republican land reform was also reversed. In this case, the large southern Spanish latifundia were to be expropriated, some of the former owners were compensated and the land was to be administered by the Instituto de Reforma Agraria , founded in 1932, and distributed to the rural population.

On May 17, 1940, a status quo economic policy began in the financial sector . What was meant by this was that the financial sector was heavily regulated, for example the establishment of new banks was made more difficult and the access of foreign banks prevented.

After the end of the Spanish Civil War , the private railways faced financial misery. The Franco government therefore nationalized most of the railway lines on January 24, 1941 and combined them to form the Red Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Españoles (RENFE) railway company .

In 1940 workers were brought together in a kind of unified union, the Organización Sindical Española (OSE), the chairman of which had ministerial rank. This organization was in turn divided into branches of production, the Sindicatos verticales .

There were penal battalions with labor soldiers (Batallones Disciplinarios de Soldados Trabajadores), which comprised almost 100,000 people and had to build dams and expressways, for example. Outstanding structures were the Guadalquivir Irrigation Canal (Canal de Riego del Bajo Guadalquivir) and the largest prison in Europe, the Carabanchel Prison . (see also: Franco's concentration camp )

The exchange rate of the peseta to the US dollar was officially set at 10.95 pesetas per US dollar between 1939 and 1947 by the Instituto Español de Moneda Extranjera (IEME) (1939–1973). Multiple exchange rates were introduced in 1948. There were nine exchange rates for imported products and fifteen exchange rates for exported products. The IEME was under the control of the Ministry of Commerce, while the Ministry of Finance, through the Bank of Spain (Central Bank of Spain), steered monetary policy in Spain.

Opening up the country

Spain succeeded for the first time in September 1953 with a US-American-Spanish defense agreement, the Pact of Madrid , to break through the international isolation that had existed until then. The most important military base established at that time is the Rota naval base . Admission to the UN took place in December 1955. The associated US economic aid was worth 170 million US dollars (as of late October 1955), but the hoped-for increase in private foreign investment in the Spanish economy did not materialize .

In 1953, over half of Spanish export products consisted of agricultural products, between a fifth and a quarter of raw materials such as pyrite, iron ore, tungsten and mercury, and finished goods consisting mainly of cotton. The most important import product in those years was raw cotton and, if the harvest was poor, wheat. In 1956, US imports were valued at $ 250 million, 65% above 1955, with $ 175 million being agricultural products. At that time Spanish industrial production consisted of less competitive, small companies in relation to international competition.

In 1951 there was a devaluation and from 1951 exporters were allowed to freely sell some of the foreign currency they had earned on the Madrid stock exchange at higher rates. Between 1953 and 1958 the growth rate of the Spanish economy was around 5%. This was bought at the cost of a massive devaluation of the peseta , high inflation and a rapidly growing black market . In 1957, the various exchange rates were standardized to 42 pesetas per US dollar. In 1959, the exchange rate was fixed at the international exchange rate of 60 pesetas per US dollar, making Spain part of the Bretton Woods system .

Spain joined the European Monetary Agreement and the OECD (then still OEEC) in July 1959 . Together with the OECD, the World Bank and the IMF , the so-called Plan de Estabilización (“Stabilization Plan ”) (actually “Plan de Estabilización y Liberalización”) , which was adopted in 1959, provided for the country's economic opening and government development plans based on the French model . In France, the Commissariat général du Plan , whose first head was Jean Monnet (1946–52), set economic incentives in order to achieve certain economic goals and to obtain joint investment and production planning by the state and the private sector. A total of three development plans were drawn up in Spain: the first plan 1964–1967, the second plan 1968–1971 and the third plan 1972–1975. In the first plan, for example, seven cities were named to be funded, in the second plan additional cities were added. The Ministry of Industry and the newly created “Commissariat for Development Plans ” ( Spanish Comisaría del Plan de Desarrollo ; see also: Dependency Theory and Structuralism ) moved to the center of economic policy , while the INI became the catchment basin for companies in crisis. Commissioner for the Development Plan, Laureano López Rodó , and his newly created agency, the “Bureau of Economic Coordination and Programming” (OCYPE). The Ministry of Industry was headed by Minister Gregorio López Bravo, who was appointed to succeed Joaquín Planell .

The implementation of the economic reforms involved several hundred million dollars in loan commitments ($ 75 million from the IMF, $ 100 million from the OEEC, $ 130 million from the U.S., $ 45 million from the United States). US dollars from various European countries and US $ 68 million from private US banks.)

The economic consequences of the reforms were an economic slump in 1959/60 and an increase in unemployment of over 10%. But from 1961 until the end of the decade, the economy grew by about 10% per year.

FASA-Renault 4CV (1957)

Spain began to benefit from increasing tourism in the 1950s, with sales of around $ 150 million in 1955. The French Club Méditerranée opened the first club village on the island of Mallorca in the 1950s. Most of the tourists in Spain came from France. Imports and exports grew from the 1960s to the early 1970s, but overall there was a growing trade deficit. This time was called "el milagro español" ("Spanish miracle"). The main growth drivers were government investments in infrastructure and mass tourism. This in turn led to a change in the economic structure - the rural population migrated to the big cities. Between 1951 and 1981, 5 million Spaniards emigrated from the poorer, rural areas of Spain. They went to the economic centers of Spain and to France and Germany. The preferred Spanish destinations were Madrid, Catalonia and Valencia (see also: List of cities in Spain ).

1950 was also the year in which the automobile manufacturer Seat was founded. The most important investor with 51% was the state INI, 42% Spanish banks and 7% the Italian automotive group Fiat . Until 1979, Seat only built Fiat vehicles under license, and so the small car Seat 600 (1957–1973) was a bestseller of those years . From the 1980s onwards, relations with the Volkswagen Group became closer and in 1986 VW took over the shares in Seat from INI. In 1952, Moto Vespa SA was launched in Spain - with the support of INI - of the Italian Vespa scooter . Renault España began local production ( Fabricación de Automóviles ) of the Renault 4CV in 1953 and Citroën España SA began building the Citroën 2CV in 1958 .

Free trade unions were illegally active. For example, the then communist Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) existed from the late 1950s . Older unions had largely been pushed abroad, such as the socialist Unión General de Trabajadores , established in 1888 , the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo , founded in 1910, and the Basque ELA-STV, established in 1911 . With the Ley de Convenios Colectivos of 1958, collective agreements between companies and employees became possible for the first time. In 1962 there were collective agreements for more than 2 million people for the first time. Most of the strikes in 1963-74 were in the steel and metalworking industries (44.5%), mining (1.1%) and construction (9.6%).

In 1967 the state mining holding company HUNOSA (Hulleras del Norte SA) was established, the largest shareholder (76.92%) of which was the state INI. A few years later, INI took over 100% of the loss-making holding company. The coal mines were in the north-west of Spain, in Asturias . While HUNOSA still had around 22,000 employees in January 1981, at the end of 2004 there were only around 4,000 employees.

Transition

The greatest economic challenge was the economic crisis triggered by the oil crises of the 1970s (1973 and 1979). The high economic growth in Spain averaging 7% per year from 1960 to 1974 ended. In the summer of 1973 the gross national product grew by 8% and unemployment was 2%. Industrial production, which expanded particularly strongly at around 10%, suffered in particular, in particular the energy and capital-intensive sectors of the steel, automotive and, above all, shipbuilding industries. In addition to the rise in energy prices and the emergence of Asian competitors, there were reasons for the crisis within Spain, such as excessive wage costs and a lack of political reforms.

After Franco's death in 1975, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the Alianza Popular were founded in 1976 , renamed the People's Party (Partido Popular, PP for short) in 1989. In 1977 the Union of the Democratic Center (UCD) and the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) followed.

The Minister for Trade Union Relations, Enrique de la Mata Gorostizaga , passed the Law on Freedom of Association for Employers and Employees in April 1977, which allowed trade unions to be legally formed.

The Spanish parliamentary elections of June 15, 1977 led to Adolfo Suárez (1976-1981), who was commissioned by King Juan Carlos I in July 1976 to form a transitional government, to be elected Prime Minister. He was followed by Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo (1981–1982) in office. Both led Spain in the transition period from dictatorship to democracy.

In July and August 1977 inflation rose to 42%, industrial wages rose by 30% and unemployment rose to 6%. On July 11, 1977, the peseta was devalued by 20%. Francisco Fernández Ordóñez was Minister of Finance (July 4, 1977 to April 6, 1979). He managed to significantly increase the low tax revenue.

With the Moncloa Pact , the government of Adolfo Suárez concluded an agreement with the political opposition in October 1977 to counteract the economic consequences of the first oil crisis of 1973. The contracting parties also agreed on the economic policy bases on which the new democratic state should be built and which were then implemented in the Spanish constitution of December 1978.

Inflation fell to 16.5% in 1978, but the second oil price shock destroyed the ongoing recovery of the economy and unemployment rose to over 22% by the early 1980s.

From 1975 to 1983, Spain experienced a banking crisis. Many banks had been newly established in recent years. These new, mostly small banks all got into economic difficulties and none of these banks survived as an independent bank. The Rumasa Holding , which owns several small banks, was nationalized in 1983. In 1977 the "Fondo de Garantía de Depósitos" was founded, with which savings deposits up to an amount of 15,000 euros were guaranteed.

Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez introduced new labor laws (Estatuto de los Trabajadores) in 1980, which were agreed between the government and the unions Unión General de Trabajadores and the CCOO. According to this, company committees (Spanish: comité de empresa) can be set up in companies with at least 50 employees; in smaller companies, personnel delegates (Spanish: delegados de personal) are elected. The composition of the operating committee is determined by elections.

Departure to democracy

The González government (1982 to 1997, PSOE ) restructured the state-owned companies owned by the Instituto Nacional de Industria . The profitability of the companies was given a higher priority and the mostly medium-sized companies were merged into so-called "national champions", which were also internationally competitive, and some were privatized. These included the energy company Endesa , the steel company Aceralia , the aluminum company Inespal (1984), the oil company Repsol (1986), the car manufacturer Seat (partially privatized in 1986 and fully in 1990), the commercial vehicle manufacturer Pegaso (privatized in 1990), the Argentaria credit institute (1991), the electronics company Indra Sistemas (1993) and the gas company Enagás (partially privatized in 1994). In 1995 the INI was transferred to the Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (SEPI).

Electricity (Spain) by source

From the mid-1980s onwards, people began looking for a substitute for expensive crude oil in Spain. There were many plans to build natural gas pipelines to Algeria, but they failed. In fact, the first pipeline only went into operation in 1996. Enagás , founded in 1975, instead built liquefied natural gas terminals for importing small amounts of natural gas and some small gas fields of their own could be developed. The Spanish state oil and natural gas activities were merged in 1981. This resulted in the subsidiary Repsol YPF in 1986 and Gas Natural in 1991 . In the 1980s, several nuclear power plants were connected to the grid in Spain ( list of nuclear facilities in Spain ), which at the end of the 1980s provided almost 40% of Spanish electricity production.

The 1985 Law on Freedom of Unions (Ley Orgánica de Libertad Sindical) made it possible for any union to form an in-house union section (Spanish: sección sindical deempresa) within a company.

Spain joined the European Economic Community on January 1, 1986, but the exchange rate mechanism, the European Monetary System , only joined the European Monetary System in mid-1989 with a margin of fluctuation widened to + 6%. In 1999 and 2002 respectively, Spain adopted the euro as its new currency. Spain is a priority country for regional policy of the European Union

1986 was also the year in which economic growth rose from the 1% to 2% in previous years to 3.3%. In 1987 growth even reached 5.5%.

Prime Minister José María Aznar (1996 to 2004) introduced the system of temporary contracts. As a result, the number of employees with various types of temporary contracts rose from 2.5 million to 5.1 million between 1985 and 1989. In 1993, about 95% of all new employment contracts were temporary contracts, and overall these temporary contracts made up about 30% of all existing employment contracts. The next reform came in 1994 when the unemployment rate reached 24.2%. The result was that in 1997 the number of temporary contracts doubled compared to 1994 and now totaled around 37% of all employment contracts.

Aznar also pursued the economic policy of privatization, fully privatizing companies such as Repsol, Endesa, Telefónica and the tobacco company Tabacalera .

At the same time as the introduction of the euro, house prices began to rise in Spain. In 2002, the annual rise in house prices exceeded the 10 percent mark, peaking between 2003 and 2005 with an annual rise in prices of almost 20%. In 2003 there was also a liberalization of the legal provisions on arable land. Financing these investments was made easier because lending rates were at their lowest levels. During the same period of time, Spain's population increased from an initial 0.5% per year to over 1.5% per year. The number of households increased even more, namely by 2% per year to 3.5% per year. From 1998 to 2008 the employable population increased by a total of 17% due to immigrants and was responsible for 37% of all new buildings.

End of the economic boom, crisis and reforms

With the international financial crisis that began in 2007, the 15-year-old economic growth ended and Spain entered recession in the second quarter of 2008. The cabinet of Zapatero I (2004–2008) and Zapatero II (2008–2011) seemed to have overcome the 2010/11 crisis, but it became apparent that the international financial crisis exacerbated the pent-up domestic undesirable developments, such as in the construction and banking sectors had that they plunged the country into the next economic crisis ( euro crisis ). Unemployment, which was only around 8% in 2007, rose to over 20% in 2011. The previously moderate national debt of around 40% (2008) also increased sharply and the state's annual new debt became a problem. In 2011, Mariano Rajoy was elected Prime Minister. In June / July 2012, the Rajoy cabinet agreed to borrow up to EUR 100 billion from the EFSF to support some Spanish banks , of which EUR 41.5 billion was drawn.

The internationally active Spanish companies offset their declining sales in Spain by expanding abroad. They reduced their debts and opened up new international sources of finance. On the other hand, the economic situation is catastrophic for the large number of companies that only operate nationally, as they lose sales and financing. The tourism sector was not entirely unaffected: the number of tourists fell in the crisis years 2008/2009 from 59 million (2007) to 52 million, accompanied by a loss of income of almost three billion euros per year.

In the third quarter of 2013, economic growth resumed in Spain and on January 23, 2014 the country left the rescue package. The interest paid by the Spanish state fell sharply, although unemployment remains at around 25%.

Politically, Spain is facing upheaval in 2015 as new parties are establishing themselves. The left-wing Podemos party emerged from the protest movement and the left-liberal, Catalan Ciudadanos is developing into a party running for elections throughout Spain.

The international financial crisis in Spain

The international financial crisis (see also: Chronological course ) led to a stock market crash for real estate companies in April 2007. The Spanish IBEX 35 share index peaked in November 2007 and has since fallen by over 50% to its low in spring 2009.

The Zapatero government , which was re-elected in the parliamentary elections on March 9, 2008 , decided in 2008 to take several economic measures. The Plan Español para estímulo de la economia y el empleo (short: Plan E) promoted construction work, supported the unemployed and gave money for individual measures, such as a car scrapping bonus and additional environmental protection measures and research funds. In addition, local authorities were given permission to make higher deficits. According to the EU, the entirety of the projects represented the largest economic stimulus program within the EU. With these measures, after the economic slump of 2009 with -3.7%, the Spanish economy succeeded in 2010 with -0.3% and in 2011 with +0.4 % stabilize.

Coupled with the cost of rising unemployment, these stimulus measures resulted in the Spanish government taking on new debt. In 2008 the national budget showed a deficit of −4.1%. In 2009 new debt then exploded to −11.2%. In June 2009, the Spanish Economy and Finance Minister Elena Salgado announced cuts in 2010 government spending. From January 2010 - Greece was threatened with insolvency - one austerity package followed another, but it was not possible to consolidate government spending in the following years either. The national debt of Spain had been reduced from 62.3% in 1999 to 36.2% in 2007, but after 2007 it increased extremely: 2008 40.2%, 2009 53.9%, 2010 61.2% and 2011 68.5% .

Spanish property market crisis

Almost every worthless agricultural land was converted into building land, with the municipalities receiving four to five% of the property's value as a fee. Property developers then had holiday complexes built there, financed by the savings banks, which they then sold. As a result, around 2 million people were employed in the construction sector in 2004. The Spanish buyers financed the property with variable interest loans (interest rate equal to Euribor plus surcharge).

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners suffer from foreclosures because they lacked the money to pay the loans. The value of real estate fell by around a third between 2008 and 2012. In the summer of 2012, the government forced banks to make write-downs of 35% on finished residential properties and 80% on land. Resistance to evictions is increasing and squatting is becoming more common. The protests in Spain in 2011/2012 are partly due to this.

Between March and September 2011, various organizations collected signatures for a popular initiative (Spanish: Iniciativa legislativa popular), which deals with the eviction problem. Among other things, the suspension of an eviction procedure until a replacement apartment has been found and - similar to the USA - when the condominium is returned, all debts associated with it are settled. The minimum of 500,000 signatures was clearly exceeded with 1.4 million signatures. In November 2012, the government and the opposition PSOE agreed in an urgent parliamentary procedure to postpone evictions for certain groups of people for two years. On February 12th, parliament decided to include the popular initiative bill in the parliamentary process.

In February 2013, Reyal Urbis , one of the largest real estate companies in the country, had to file for bankruptcy.

The tax liability of the Spanish construction and real estate sector towards the Spanish tax authorities is now over 6 billion euros (2016).

Spanish savings banks crisis

The Spanish state bank rescue fund Fondo de Reestructuración Ordenada Bancaria (FROB) repeatedly gave money until the beginning of 2011 when ailing savings banks merged. Since many Spanish banks had problems refinancing themselves via the capital market from 2011 onwards , the government began in 2011 to encourage the savings banks to increase their own funds . To contain the crisis, in December 2011 and February 2012 the ECB carried out refinancing operations amounting to several hundred billion with an interest rate of 1% for three years in favor of many European banks. During the crisis, the ECB became the most important source of money for many Spanish savings banks; for example, the net loans from Spanish banks amounted to 375.5 billion in July 2012. In addition, the loan default rate in June 2012 was almost ten% and deposits from companies and households at Spanish banks were reduced. From July 2011 to July 2012, deposits fell by twelve%. On the other hand, the Spanish banks, in particular the savings banks, own many shares in important Spanish companies.

Some banks were nationalized: Bankia , Caja Castilla-La Mancha, CajaSur, Caja Mediterráneo (temporarily) and Banco de Valencia .

The euro finance ministers decided in June / July 2012 that the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) would raise bonds of up to 100 billion euros on the capital market and, subject to certain conditions, give these to Spain in several tranches to recapitalize the Spanish banking sector. The Spanish state is responsible for the repayment. In July, the Eurogroup approved the first 30 billion euros for the Spanish state bank rescue fund FROB. Once a European banking supervisory authority has been set up under the supervision of the ECB , the loan is to be transferred to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), although much is still unclear.

From the end of November or beginning of December 2012, Spanish banks will be able to issue loans to the state bad bank SAREB (Spanish: Sociedad de Gestión de Activos procedentes de la Reestructuración Bancaria), with the FROB in control. The state will transfer loans amounting to 45 billion euros from previous rescue measures to the fund. The planned discounts should, for example. for real estate in foreclosure on average 63.1% and for new houses on average 54.2%. The Spanish government plans to be able to finance around half of the required capital through private investors.

Crisis of the Autonomous Communities of Spain

The 1.3 billion euro science center (opera, cinema and museum) in Valencia

An important problem of the Autonomous Communities of Spain is that the regions have less influence than the central government in the Council of Fiscal and Financial Policy (Spanish: Consejo de Política Fiscal y Financiera) created in 1980 . This council organizes the financial relations between the central government and the regions, the allocations of the Interterritorial Equalization Fund (Spanish: Fondo de Compensación Interterritorial) to the regions ( financial equalization between financially stronger and financially weaker regions) and coordinates the debt policy and public investments. Since the general government budget deficit of Spain is to be reduced from 8.9% (2011) to 6.3% (2012), the Spanish government is planning tough austerity measures for the regions, which - according to some autonomous communities - would reduce their autonomy (see also: Regional parties in Spain ). For 2012, a maximum new debt of 1.5% is specified. Not only is the current crisis making it difficult to achieve this goal, but especially the costs for health and education paid by the autonomous communities have been rising continuously for decades without being adequately financed .

Of the 17 autonomous communities, seven regions (as of October 19, 2012) are asking the Spanish central government for financing because they no longer have any credit on the capital market. The bonds of the autonomous communities, which were sold to hundreds of thousands of small investors, therefore suffered high price losses on the capital markets. To solve the crisis, the central government created a EUR 18 billion liquidity fund for the autonomous regions on July 13, 2012 , which functions in a similar way to the European EFSF .

On Tuesday, September 11, 2012, at the Diada Nacional de Catalunya , more than a million Catalans demonstrated in Barcelona for an independent Catalan state. The head of government of Catalonia, Artur Mas , complained that Catalonia transfers a lot more money to the central government than it gets back from there. Mas is therefore striving for a tax autonomy for Catalonia, comparable to that of the Basque Country and Navarre , the so-called foral system. All three regions are among the economically strongest regions in Spain, with Catalonia having the highest debt of all regions in Spain.

Spanish labor market crisis

Unemployment by age (2005–2012)
Unemployment rate Spain
year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Worth % 8.2 11.3 17.9 19.9 21.4 24.8 26.1 24.5

At the beginning of 2015, unemployment in Spain was the second highest in the European Union at 23.7%. According to the State Statistical Office EPA (Encuesta de Población Activa) , around 5.5 million people were registered as unemployed in 2014. A person between the ages of 16 and 65 can be considered unemployed. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is observing increasing inequality between generations. While the older generation still benefited from permanent and well-paid employment contracts, the younger generation hardly managed to get permanent and well-paid employment.

The numerical values ​​for youth unemployment (young people under 25 years of age) reached over 50% during the crisis (English: unemployment rate). In this calculation, the young people in an apprenticeship are removed from the statistics. If, on the other hand, one takes all young people as the basis for the calculation (unemployment ratio), then the youth unemployment rate is 19% instead. In Spain, unemployment among people without a university degree is 9% higher than among people with a comparable degree, according to an OECD study on the risk distribution of unemployment. The OECD average difference is 2.5%. A university degree in Spain has a greater influence on the employment situation and a different significance for the labor market.

In August 2009, the Zapatero II cabinet introduced a social allowance of 420 euros for the unemployed, which they should receive for six months after the unemployment benefit expires. The Rajoy cabinet extended this measure in August 2012.

In 2008 the government launched a program to encourage the voluntary homecoming of unemployed Latin American immigrants. Tens of thousands of Latin Americans who immigrated to Spain during the boom years left the country. The largest group of Latin Americans are the approximately 480,000 Ecuadorians. The other large groups of immigrants are the approximately 810,000 Romanians and the approximately 735,000 Moroccans. For 2011, the INE statistics office announced that for the first time in ten years more people (50,090) emigrated than immigrated, with 62,611 Spaniards and 445,130 foreigners leaving the country mainly for Morocco, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and France.

Spanish labor market in transport

The labor market situation of Spanish professional drivers is characterized by high unemployment. It is hardly possible for young professionals and people over the age of 45 to get employment in the Spanish transport sector from unemployment. Even professional drivers who are in permanent employment are at risk of unemployment due to the deregulation of the Spanish labor market since 2007. The barriers to dismissing long-term employees have largely been lifted.

Professional drivers who have worked for the construction sector are severely affected by unemployment. Employment in the construction industry has largely collapsed after the property crisis in 2007. In addition to the group of truck drivers, other groups of professional drivers are recorded by the Spanish employment agency. The following sub-groups are found in the Spanish labor market in the transport sector:

  • permanently employed truck drivers
  • Drivers of mopeds and motorcycles
  • Owner of a truck
  • salaried taxi drivers and drivers of cars
  • Bus driver and train driver

Spain is characterized by a heterogeneous distribution of unemployment in the transport sector. 18.07% of all unemployed professional drivers are in Andalusia, followed by Valencia (14.23%), Catalonia (12.83%) and Madrid (12.06%). In all other “Comunidades Autónomas” the unemployment rate is below 7%. The concentration of unemployment in transport correlates with unemployment in other employment sectors. On December 31, 2011, 119,883 people with the qualification of professional drivers were registered as unemployed at the Spanish employment agency Sepe. This means an increase of 7.58% compared to the previous month. In the same year, 358,336 jobs were reported in the transport sector, a slight decrease of 0.46% compared to the previous year.

Profile of unemployed 2013 %
Men 96.53%
Women 3.47%
Under 30 years old 10.89%
Over 45 years old 45.90%
Long-term unemployed 32.12%
People with disabilities 1.82%
Non-Spaniards 12.11%
First job 2.37%
Recipients of grants 78.92%
Unemployment in healthcare in Spain

In the wake of the financial market crisis and the austerity efforts of the Spanish government, the employment situation on the Spanish labor market has changed. Due to the austerity policy of the Spanish government, the health sector is particularly subject to austerity measures: In 2013, an average of 14,499 nurses were registered as unemployed. The lowest registered unemployment was in August at 6903 nurses, the peak reached the month of February with 19,639 jobless nurses. For José Luis Cobos, advisor to the Spanish Nursing Professional Association, the fluctuations are related to the vacation replacements during the summer months and the Christmas holidays. During these months, the nurses receive short-term employment contracts; then they go back to unemployment. It is a novelty that in 2013 the month of February ranks before the months of October and November.

For Cobos, this can be explained by the fact that many nurses are no longer registered by the Spanish employment agency after the summer months: "We are convinced that these skilled workers simply no longer register as unemployed and that there is also a strong emigration to other European countries". However, he adds, “there is still no precise data on the emigrated nurses.” The number of nurses who emigrated to Germany, for example, fluctuated between 450 and 3500 in 2013. There are currently no official figures.

Since 2013, more and more Spanish nurses have been moving abroad. A trend that should continue if the austerity measures by the Spanish state continue. SATSE, the Spanish Nurses Union, fears that one in three Spanish nurses will be out of work in less than five years. According to the analysis, Spain is already at the bottom of the list within the European Union in terms of the density of nurses per 1000 inhabitants. In 2013, unemployment reached its temporary peak with almost 20,000 unemployed nurses; thus it has risen by 400% in recent years. For the next five years, the union is forecasting a further increase of almost 30%, which should affect up to 75,000 nurses in 2018. More than 11,000 nursing graduates leave the universities every year.

See also

literature

  • Javier Tusell (Ed.): Spain From Dictatorship to Democracy, 1939 to the Present . Blackwell Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4443-3974-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gross domestic product at market prices At current prices, millions of PPS (purchasing power standard). Eurostat, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Gross domestic product at market prices At current prices in millions of euros (from 1.1.1999) / millions of ecu (up to 31.12.1998). Eurostat, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  3. ↑ Federal Statistical Office of June 7, 2016 https://www.destatis.de/Europa/DE/Staat/EUStaaten/Spanien.html ( Memento of November 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ a b c d CIA: The world factbook
  5. ↑ Federal Statistical Office of June 7, 2016 https://www.destatis.de/Europa/DE/Staat/EUStaaten/Spanien.html ( Memento of November 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Federal Statistical Office of June 7, 2016 https://www.destatis.de/Europa/DE/Staat/EUStaaten/Spanien.html ( Memento of November 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Employment, domestic concept - a total of 1,000 people. Eurostat, accessed March 20, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Eurostat: Euro area unemployment , January 9, 2018.
  9. ↑ International trade, according to the declaring country, total product, millions of EUR, exports in millions of ECU / EURO. Eurostat, accessed April 5, 2013 .
  10. ↑ International trade, according to the declaring country, total product, millions of EUR, imports in millions of ECU / EURO. Eurostat, accessed April 5, 2013 .
  11. ↑ Eurostat - Foreign Trade Balance , Accessed October 17, 2010.
  12. ↑ Government debt (Maastricht debt) as% of GDP - annual data. Eurostat, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  13. ↑ Total government revenue% of GDP. Eurostat, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  14. ↑ Total general government% of GDP. Eurostat, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  15. ^ Government deficit (-) / surplus (+) - annual data. Eurostat, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  16. ↑ Country / Economy Profiles . In: Global Competitiveness Index 2017-2018 . ( weforum.org [accessed December 4, 2017]).
  17. ↑ Country Rankings: World & Global Economy Rankings on Economic Freedom. Retrieved December 4, 2017 .
  18. ^ Report for Selected Countries and Subjects. Retrieved September 1, 2018 (American English).
  19. ↑ In: Der Tagesspiegel , p. 15. "75 million tourists in Spain". January 10, 2017
  20. ^ Taz: Wrecking Ball Against Memory, October 25, 2008
  21. ↑ a b Marcela Sabaté, María Dolores Gadea, José María Serrano: A story of PPP persistence. The Spanish Peseta (1870-1998) against the Dollar and the Pound, pages: 5.6 (PDF; 140 kB)
  22. ↑ a b Bank for International Settlements - Annual Report 1954, page 126 (PDF; 9.1 MB)
  23. ↑ Zeit.de: Two years after the Pact of Madrid - Interim balance sheet of America Aid, November 10, 1955
  24. ↑ Bank for International Settlements - Annual Report 1954, page 116 (PDF; 9.1 MB)
  25. ↑ Bank for International Settlements - Annual Report 1957, page 162 (PDF; 9.0 MB)
  26. ↑ Birgit Aschmann, Treue Freunde ... ?: - West Germany and Spain 1945 to 1963, page 296, note 255
  27. ↑ arteHistoria, Abdón Mateos and Alvaro Soto: Relaciones laborales y conflictividad social (España)
  28. ↑ group30.org; Jaime Caruana: Lessons Learned from Previous Banking Crises: Sweden, Japan, Spain, and Mexico; April 2009, pages 33–40 ( Memento from July 20, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 374 kB)
  29. ↑ iese.edu.es: Sandalio Gómez, Ignacio Contreras, María Dolores Gracia: Las reformas laborales en España y su impacto real en el mercado de trabajo en el período 1985-2008, page 13 ( Memento of November 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.1 MB)
  30. ↑ Pau Rabanal, Oriol Aspachs-Bracons: The Drivers of Housing Cycles in Spain, pages 5 - 8, September 2009
  31. ↑ ideas, Libertad Gonzalez and Francesc Ortega: Immigration and Housing Booms: Evidence from Spain; Page 18, July 2009
  32. ↑ ec.europa.eu: Memorandum of Understanding on Financial-Sector Policy Conditionality, July 20, 2012
  33. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education: Spain in Times of the Global Economic Crisis | bpb. Retrieved January 15, 2018 .
  34. ↑ MINISTERIO DE INDUSTRIA, ENERGÍA Y TURISMO, INSTITUTO DE TURISMO DE ESPAÑA, SG de Conocimiento y Estudios Turísticos: Informe Anual 2012 . November 2013, p. 12 .
  35. ↑ FAZ: The "black cloud" over Spain is clearing, January 23, 2014
  36. ↑ cotizalia.com: Año III… después de Astroc, April 23, 2010 ( Memento of August 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  37. ↑ eurofound.europa.eu, Esteban Villarejo: Government plan to boost economy and protected unemployed people, April 30, 2009
  38. ↑ Welt-Online June 15, 2009: New Spanish finance minister makes cash fall
  39. ↑ [http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-23042012-AP/DE/2-23042012-AP-DE.PDF Eurostat: Public deficit in the euro area and in the EU27, 23. April 2012] (link not available)
  40. ↑ a b bloomberg.com: Property Values ​​Sink Further in Spain - Wealth Will Be Slow to Recover, August 15, 2012
  41. ^ Morgenpost.de: Spain threatens the property crash, April 3, 2008
  42. ↑ FTD: Revitalization of the Real Estate Market, August 6, 2012 ( Memento of August 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  43. ^ Junge Welt: First Success for Mortgage Victims, February 14, 2013
  44. ↑ 20minutos.es: Una iniciativa legislativa popular recoge casi un millón y medio de firmas por la dación en pago, February 14, 2013
  45. ↑ New York Times, November 16, 2012
  46. ↑ heise.de: Loan defaults and evictions in Spain are increasing dramatically, December 19, 2012
  47. ↑ "El 'ladrillo' más moroso". In: El Mundo, July 1, 2016, accessed July 2, 2016
  48. ↑ Tagesspiegel.de: Draghi plans Operation Big Bertha, February 28, 2012
  49. ↑ n-tv.de: More and more on the drip from the ECB - Spain's banks are drawing money, August 14, 2012
  50. ↑ heise.de: And now the mother of all financial market reforms ?, September 1, 2012
  51. ↑ Welt.de: Sharp decline in private deposits at Spanish banks, August 28, 2012
  52. ↑ n-tv: Banks face emergency sales - Das Ende der Spanien AG, June 26, 2012
  53. ^ Handelsblatt: Central bank saves Banco de Valencia from bankruptcy, November 21, 2011
  54. ↑ t-online.de: Outrage in Spain: Sparkasse commits "Harakiri", May 25, 2010
  55. ^ Süddeutsche.de: Spanisches Finanzinstitut Caja Mediterraneo, June 29, 2012
  56. ↑ consilium.europa.eu: Euro Area Summit statement, June 29, 2012 (PDF; 17 kB)
  57. ↑ cducsu.de: Financial aid for Spain - 22 questions and answers, July 18, 2012
  58. ↑ Focus.de: Spain presents details on the bad bank concept, October 29, 2012
  59. ↑ presseurop.eu: Hangover in Valencia, March 2012
  60. ↑ finanzen.net: Spanish regions are main risk for high debt, August 21, 2012
  61. ↑ El Mundo: Los bonos autonómicos atrapan a cientos de miles de pequeños ahorradores, August 13, 2012
  62. ↑ Zeit.de: Millions of Catalans no longer want to pay for Spain, September 12, 2012
  63. ↑ Eurostat: Unemployment rate for Spain, accessed on November 12, 2014
  64. ↑ Unemployment rate in the euro area at 11.4%. (PDF; 103 kB) In: Eurostat . January 30, 2015, accessed February 2, 2015 .
  65. ↑ Economically Active Population Survey - Quarter 4/2014. In: INE . January 22, 2015, accessed January 27, 2015 .
  66. ↑ Unemployment rate from 2004 to 2014
  67. ↑ project-syndicate.org, Steven Hill: The illusion of youth unemployment, August 15, 2012
  68. ↑ ILO: Youth jobs count - but how ?, November 2, 2012
  69. ↑ Labor market in Spain. In: tta-personal.de. Retrieved July 7, 2019 .
  70. ↑ FTD: Crisis in Spain forces immigrants to return home, July 25, 2012 ( Memento of July 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  71. ↑ presseurop.eu: The Spaniards emigrate, January 17, 2012 ( Memento of December 26, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  72. ^ Spanish labor market transport. In: tta-personaltransport.de. Retrieved July 7, 2019 .
  73. ↑ Unemployment of nurses and doctors
  74. ↑ Unemployment in care by region
  75. ↑ Development of unemployment in Spain - SATSE