Ibero American Summit
This week at the Ibero-American Summit in San Salvador Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain stated that when agreeing upon reforms to the international financial system the new geopolitical reality had to be taken into account.
Zapatero mentioned several of the proposals he had previously put forward to deal with the crisis which included redefining the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) so that it intensifies its preventive function, greater transparency in markets, more coordination of the national supervising agencies and injecting liquidity to stimulate economic reactivation.
He also stated “The myth of deregulation made possible this perversion and, instead of being useful to the productive economy, the international financial system has wound up seriously perturbing it”.
The prime minister, who has already received the explicit support of several leaders there regarding his desire to be present at the economic conference in Washington, (so far not invited), pointed out that the countries of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America are confronting this crisis far better than on previous occasions.
Although easy to complain about the deregulation of the financial markets and the ease in which credit has been available, over the last few years Spain, like many parts of the world, has benefited from this situation. The building boom being a key example. It is also worth pointing out that this is Zapateros second term in power and had if instead of concentrating on social issues, noteworthy as they were, but instead on improving the economic & bureaucratic issues that plague the nation, Spain might be in a far stronger position than it is now.
Regards
Andrew Bellés
