Spain has launched an 11bn euro (£9.2bn) plan aimed at boosting the economy and creating 300,000 jobs. The plan, which represents 1.1% of the Spain's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is part of the European Union's 200bn euro stimulus announced on Wednesday. The money will be mainly invested in infrastructure and public works, Spain's prime minister Jorge Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said. Spain's unemployment reached 11.3% in September - an EU record. Construction crisis The Spanish government said it would invest 0.8bn euros in the ailing car industry, which has been through a severe downturn and seen sales plummet 54.6% since the beginning of the year.
Spain has launched an 11bn euro (£9.2bn) plan aimed at boosting the economy and creating 300,000 jobs.
The plan, which represents 1.1% of the Spain's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is part of the European Union's 200bn euro stimulus announced on Wednesday.
The money will be mainly invested in infrastructure and public works, Spain's prime minister Jorge Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.
Spain's unemployment reached 11.3% in September - an EU record.
Construction crisis
The Spanish government said it would invest 0.8bn euros in the ailing car industry, which has been through a severe downturn and seen sales plummet 54.6% since the beginning of the year.
Reported 2 hours before the end of debate (20:10 GMT) in congress:
11bn euro (£9.2bn) plan 1.1% of the Spain's Jorge Luis Rodriguez Zapatero 0.8bn euros
No € sign on their keyboards No grammar necessary Jorge, who? Well they got 3 of 4 right... ´0.8bn euros´, must be.... ummm.... ´0.0008 tn euros´?
The auto industry rescue stinks, but it´s a necessary compromise since they are foreign companies that have been planning and threatening lay-offs for months, even though the plants are profitable. Thanks, Nissan, GM-Opel, et al. The auto industry covers 300K jobs and it´s too late to divert any without a huge blowback for people and unions. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
MADRID.- The Vice President of the Spanish Government, María Teresa Fernández de la Vega, during the inauguration of the International Forum on Economy & Open Society......, said the current crisis has made evident that "the invisible hand of the market needs the very visible hand of the state to guarantee and save economic stability and social justice". ... In a strong speech against neoconservative currents and thought, the Vice President pointed out that the economic situation "is only another watershed in the collapse of a way to see the world, of understanding and practicing politics, of conceiving human relations, economic reality and life in society." ... These ideas "have shown their real face in these months: failure in the economic area, conflict in the international arena and tension in the social sphere"...
The foreign press doesn´t write about her because her name is too long, but she wastes no words in grasping the situation and responding clearly. Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
The global financial crisis creates new losers each day. So far, though, the EU is looking like a winner. For many countries along the continent's northern edge, euro-skepticism is a luxury they can no longer afford. Will 2008 be remembered as the year that killed the euro-skeptics? It certainly didn't begin that way. Back in June, the people of Ireland stunned the world by voting down the Treaty of Lisbon, bringing the project of ever-closer European integration to a screeching halt. The failure of the Irish vote -- the only popular referendum on the treaty anywhere in Europe -- seemed to ratify the verdict delivered by French and Dutch voters in 2005 as they torpedoed the European Constitution: no more power for Brussels. Will anything be left standing after the financial crisis? The EU and its currency are among the few winners. Then, in August, the EU got another jolt when war broke out between Russia and Georgia. As conflict raged in the Caucasus, European officials struggled to come up with a unified response, underscoring tensions between member-states. The old-guard, led by France and Germany, sought to balance their affection for the newly-democratic Georgia with their dependence on Russian natural gas imports. At the same time, newer member states like Poland, for whom the experience of Russian intimidation was all too familiar, clamored for solidarity with Georgia. The EU looked weak and riven by internal conflict. These days, though, such bickering seems like ancient history. Between summer's turbulence and today's reality, the New York investment bank Lehman Brothers failed in mid-September, sending the world into a financial tailspin from which it might take years to recover. But instead of sounding the death knell for what was an already flailing EU, the financial crisis has had the effect of breathing new life into a bloc that just a couple months ago looked deflated and defeated.
The global financial crisis creates new losers each day. So far, though, the EU is looking like a winner. For many countries along the continent's northern edge, euro-skepticism is a luxury they can no longer afford.
Will 2008 be remembered as the year that killed the euro-skeptics? It certainly didn't begin that way.
Back in June, the people of Ireland stunned the world by voting down the Treaty of Lisbon, bringing the project of ever-closer European integration to a screeching halt. The failure of the Irish vote -- the only popular referendum on the treaty anywhere in Europe -- seemed to ratify the verdict delivered by French and Dutch voters in 2005 as they torpedoed the European Constitution: no more power for Brussels.
Will anything be left standing after the financial crisis? The EU and its currency are among the few winners. Then, in August, the EU got another jolt when war broke out between Russia and Georgia. As conflict raged in the Caucasus, European officials struggled to come up with a unified response, underscoring tensions between member-states. The old-guard, led by France and Germany, sought to balance their affection for the newly-democratic Georgia with their dependence on Russian natural gas imports. At the same time, newer member states like Poland, for whom the experience of Russian intimidation was all too familiar, clamored for solidarity with Georgia. The EU looked weak and riven by internal conflict.
These days, though, such bickering seems like ancient history. Between summer's turbulence and today's reality, the New York investment bank Lehman Brothers failed in mid-September, sending the world into a financial tailspin from which it might take years to recover. But instead of sounding the death knell for what was an already flailing EU, the financial crisis has had the effect of breathing new life into a bloc that just a couple months ago looked deflated and defeated.
Letter From Berlin: As Financial Crisis Grows, EU Emerges Stronger - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International
... Right now, Danish interest rates stand at 5 percent, putting the country at a considerable competitive disadvantage to its neighbors in the euro zone countries, whose interest rates recently dropped half a point to 3.25 percent. Further cuts are expected. As the Danish economy joins the rest of the continent in the march toward recession, those high interest rates will feel increasingly punishing. <...> "It used to be possible to be pro-EU and anti-euro," [Johannes Andersen, a political scientist at Denmark's University of Aalborg] told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Now, since interest rates started nosing upward, those already predisposed to be friendly to EU are likely to be pro-euro as well.
As the Danish economy joins the rest of the continent in the march toward recession, those high interest rates will feel increasingly punishing. <...>
"It used to be possible to be pro-EU and anti-euro," [Johannes Andersen, a political scientist at Denmark's University of Aalborg] told SPIEGEL ONLINE. Now, since interest rates started nosing upward, those already predisposed to be friendly to EU are likely to be pro-euro as well.
their affection for the newly-democratic Georgia with their dependence on Russian natural gas imports.
All the massive onslaught of recent information that shows beyond a doubt that the war stemmed from mostly unprovoked Georgian agreession still hasn't changed the narrative on this.
How about balancing the claims of "volatile and unstable Georgia with their delicate longstanding relations with their largest neighbor"? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
