Spain is the EU country with the highest unemployment rate for the first time since 2012

[CumbrianLefty]

Ahead of Greece in this table is surely......not good?

[CumbrianLefty]

Eh, Spain fundamental problem is still what it always was - the near impossibility of defaulting on your debt, coupled to the house price collapse and an exceptionally fragile, zombie banking sector. Which means people waste their disposable income on paying back loans they will never fully pay back to banks which don't have the ability to provide credit back into the economy.

Coupled, obviously, with a huge tourism sector, which obviously, in the year people aren't travelling... Well, not so great.

I mean, the overally conclusion is that "don't put all your eggs in ones basket", "asset bubbles are bad", and that expecting the private sector to magic the economy better by itself doesn't work. And neither of those conclusions are especially friendly towards free market oriented economic ideologies.

The Left has to be honest and talk about labour market policies, painted as "job security measures" that simply do not favour incoming graduates. Its a feature in latin (inc. Belgium) countries that moving on boomer/gen x deadwood is too hard so keep the 20somethings on sh**t contracts.

That happens here too.