Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has poured cold water on claims from the Spanish government that the recession is over and the country is on the road to recovery.
Speaking at the Global Forum on Spain in Bilbao she said: “Thanks to the formidable actions over the past five years, Europe – and Spain –are now turning the corner. Yet the task is far from finished. Growth remains too low and unemployment too high for us to declare victory on the crisis.”
The scars of the crisis run deep and will take years to heal, Lagarde said. “There is no doubt that the reforms that I have outlined for Europe and for Spain will take several years of determined efforts by both government and society.” The good news, she said, is that Spanish exports have risen faster than Germany’s.
Insisting that the “strong reform momentum must be maintained”, she called for a continued shakeup of the labour market, and said reforms “should not benefit those in work but those without it”.
via The Guardian
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