Summary

[Treasury] Minister Solbes asserted a few days ago that “in 2004, the pantry was not only empty, but the last bill hadn’t been paid.” This statement comes from somebody who will never be able to delete from his résumé the fact that, when stepping down from government in 1996, the ‘pantry’ he left behind included an unemployment rate of 22.8%, a pension system filing for administration, interest rates for mortgages at 11.15%, the budget deficit at 6.6% of GDP, Public debt at 64% of GDP, two devaluations of the domestic currency and none of the convergence criteria fulfilled. Neither will he be able to delete his deplorable economic interventionism since 2004 in episodes that have done so much to detract from Spain’s institutional credit, such as the bid to take over Endesa, the increase in tax pressure by 2 points of GDP, a 40% increase in government expenditure, the rise of the external deficit to 10% of GDP, the reduction of freedom of trade, the reduction of the purchasing power of workers’ wages, or the end of the economic convergence and the start of the economic divergence from Europe. All of these ‘achievements’ have taken place in the period since he was appointed Minister of the Treasury. But in 2004 he inherited an economy that was integrated in the euro zone, with 5 million new jobs, an inflation rate of 2.2%, a budgetary surplus, a Social Security reserve fund of over 15,000 million euros, a very low Public debt ratio, an ‘AAA’ rating for Public debt, and mortgage rates at 3.39%.