MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spain prepares to announce radical reforms while “economy begins recovery”

Rodriguez Zapatero wants a Sustainable Economy for Spain but he could be our before he implements the reforms

Spanish president Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said Monday that the country’s “economic recovery” has started and all indicates that the rhythm will accelerate.

Speaking at a forum organized by The Economist in Madrid the Spanish president admitted that it’s too early to determine “how strongly” or at “what pace” or when the economy will be strong enough “to begin creating jobs”.

Nevertheless recovery has “taken off”, some countries faster and stronger than others.

“Spain is ready to recover a vigorous economic growth so we must push as soon as possible to achieve our full potential” he emphasized.

The Spanish president statements follow his weekend address to the Socialist party when he anticipated that next Friday he would be announcing a bill that collects the fundamentals for as Spanish Sustainable Economy.

The sweeping reforms will cover al areas of the economy from labor laws to the education system so that “Spain once again grows strongly and in a more sustained way” he told a gathering of the Socialist Party in Madrid.

“We have always been the party of change, the party which has known how to give new opportunities to Spanish society. We have known how to do it, we have done it and we will do it again,” he added.

Rodriguez Zapatero said the reforms would include a focus on renewable energy, high quality education and a more modern public administration but he provided no concrete details.

The Spanish economy has been since the beginning of the crisis the “sick man” of the European Union with the economy contracting 0.3% in the third quarter, its fifth straight quarterly decline, contrasting with a return to growth in the entire Euro-zone of 0.4% during the same period.

Europe's fifth-biggest economy has proved especially vulnerable to the global credit crunch because growth relied heavily on credit-fuelled domestic demand and a property boom boosted by easy access to loans.

Spain's unemployment rate has doubled over the past two years to hit nearly 18%, the highest level in Europe, with construction workers leading the job losses.

The country of just over 46 million people accounts for roughly half of the rise in the number of jobless in the 16 countries sharing the euro currency over the last year, according to the European Union's statistics office Eurostat.

Earlier this month, the head of the Bank of Spain, Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordoñez, warned that the country's growth model was “unsustainable” as it was excessively based on construction.

He also called for reforms in the labor market, without which he warned Spain faced a long period of high unemployment. Spain accounts for just 3% of “high-quality” European exports, compared with 12% for France or almost a third for Germany, according to the Paris-based CEPII institute.