"Although the facts keep staring them in the face, they continue to deny reality." The words of Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in Economics, accurately define the stubbornness of those European leaders who insist on maintaining austerity, despite its failure. Only the precipitous fall of the Stock Exchange registered this week in the main capitals due to the fear of a new recession has precipitated an unavoidable political debate: the rate of reduction of the public deficit must be compatible with growth.
In the event that we are entering a process of stagnation or, what is worse, a third recession due to the fall of the German and Italian economies, as well as the paralysis that is experienced in France, the formulas that must be applied to return to the path of growth must be the opposite of those that have been promoted since the crisis began seven years ago. There are powerful reasons to design a policy that prevents a weakening of all European national economies. And those reasons are none other than the need to face a problem that is miserably cutting off the hopes of millions of young people and millions of unemployed people.
Spain cannot continue to be an accomplice to an intransigent policy that only guarantees – via constitutional mandate – the payment of debt and the reduction of the deficit. I believe that we must comply with the payment of what we owe and I also believe that reducing the deficit is an essential condition for a climate of stability and confidence to exist, but I also believe that both obligations cannot truncate our progress towards an economic model that guarantees a future of social and economic progress.
The Budgets that the State Government has prepared for 2015 are not what the Spanish economy needs to successfully overcome the stage of notable uncertainty that has opened up on the continent. Our economy depends on the evolution of our community partners and a stagnation or fall in the indices of countries such as Germany or France would cause a notable weakening of our economy and all forecasts for 2015 would go to the trash.
The convulsion that is being experienced in Europe due to the fear of another recession is even more worrying for the Canary Islands economy. Our companies follow more closely what happens in Germany or the United Kingdom, the two main issuers of tourists to the Islands, than what happens in Spain. In fact, during the last two years, despite the fall in peninsular tourism, the main engine of our economy has been able to weather the storm thanks to the historical data recorded in the arrival of German, British, French, Italian visitors, etc.
Europe is crying out for another roadmap. And the Canary Islands needs Spain to step forward and demand a policy aimed at stimulating demand and employment. And to do so without further delay. To act with the same firmness as France and Italy to prevent the wounds that are already visible in the evolution of the economy from spreading through a system whose vital signs are fading.
The feeling that exists is that we are witnessing more of the same) That the old Europe, despite the fact that unemployment remains at historical highs and that demand continues to stagnate, remains dormant and without the capacity to unleash itself from an austerity policy that, as Stiglitz himself writes, not only weakens our economy but also our democracy.
The most important lesson we have learned from the crisis is that nothing is immovable and that the future is something that can be decided if there is an active involvement of citizens. "The task ahead of us," as Daniel Innerarity explains, "is to determine ourselves, through processes of democratic legitimation, how we want to politically build our responsibility." And that task involves directly facing the challenges without limiting ourselves, as the State Government and the European Union have done, to the improvised management of the crisis without outlining an economic model that restores hope.
Compliance with the deficit reduction targets and the payment of debt cannot continue to be the central axis of Spanish and Community policy. Both measures not only contribute to dismantling public services but also reduce the muscle of the policies that will help us to be less vulnerable. I am referring to R&D, to renewable energies, to the design of policies that allow industry to increase its specific weight or, for example, that deteriorated tourist spaces do not threaten the future of this sector. And that will only be possible if there is a change of course in the failed austerity policy.
Ana Oramas, deputy of the Canarian Coalition
