The Catalan government wants to
be independent but its economy is a mess. The government that hates Madrid so much
is receiving a bail-out from the Spanish government to the tune of €6.347bn,
making a total of more than €30bn in three years. Almost €2bn will go to the Catalan
deficit, which at 2% is higher than the official ceiling of 1% allowed to Spain’s
autonomous communities. And that’s part of the problem. It is Madrid that is responsible
internationally for the Spanish economy as a whole but a large part of it is in
the hands of the 17 autonomous communities that make up the country. There has
to be some kind of control of their activities.
Catalonia’s bonds
are at junk status and it cannot access the financial markets. How could an independent
Catalonia operate when it can’t pay its bills now? In November the pharmacies
closed for half a day because they were owed a total of €416m or €140,000 each
shop with 22 impounded as security for the debt. (Spanish
link) They are all independent traders, no pharmacist can own more than one
licence in Spain.
No comments:
Post a Comment