"Much of this stems from Spain’s exaggerated decentralisation. The democratic constitution’s creation of 17 autonomous regions tried to reverse Franco’s heavy-handed centralisation, while keeping enough national control to satisfy the right, long nervous about self-government of Basques, Catalans and Galicians. In fact it has led to waste in public spending and to 17 sets of business regulations, fragmenting the national market and increasing costs. And it has failed to settle Spain’s historic quarrels: Basque and Catalan nationalists have exploited their status as coalition partners of the two main parties to demand ever more powers.
Mr Rajoy’s absolute majority in parliament plus his party’s control over many of Spain’s regions could allow him to start rolling back this trend. He should be cheered that a new centrist group which split from the Socialists in protest over Mr Zapatero’s toadying to the regions took almost 5% of the vote. Although Basque separatists, boosted by the end of ETA’s terrorism, and Catalan nationalists also did well, one lesson of the euro crisis applies also at home: too much splintering makes governing an economic union harder." [The Economist]
The key point is that there is not even one real reason or argument given in the article to prove why decentralisation is such a big problem for spanish economy. Only the vague suggestion that decentralisation causes implies lesser speed of reaction. Although the politics developed by the catalan nationalist administration prove the opposite.
Even more, given the fact that the article absolutely ignores the efforts made by Catalonia to restrain its economic spending (the toughest by far made by any admministration in Spain) it comes the suspicion that there could be an interested purpose in the article, and not a healthy journalist job.
Mr Rajoy’s absolute majority in parliament plus his party’s control over many of Spain’s regions could allow him to start rolling back this trend. He should be cheered that a new centrist group which split from the Socialists in protest over Mr Zapatero’s toadying to the regions took almost 5% of the vote. Although Basque separatists, boosted by the end of ETA’s terrorism, and Catalan nationalists also did well, one lesson of the euro crisis applies also at home: too much splintering makes governing an economic union harder." [The Economist]
The key point is that there is not even one real reason or argument given in the article to prove why decentralisation is such a big problem for spanish economy. Only the vague suggestion that decentralisation causes implies lesser speed of reaction. Although the politics developed by the catalan nationalist administration prove the opposite.
Even more, given the fact that the article absolutely ignores the efforts made by Catalonia to restrain its economic spending (the toughest by far made by any admministration in Spain) it comes the suspicion that there could be an interested purpose in the article, and not a healthy journalist job.
2 comments:
Please, do note that "The Economist" belong to an insane country like England...
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