Zapatero: Workers Need to be Flexible, Like in Germany
September 1st, 2010
Spain’s Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said today that his nation needed to accept temporary pain for a better economic future, but said Spanish workers were often unwilling to be flexible.
“All countries make sacrifices today for a better tomorrow,” he told a press conference in Tokyo when asked how he will sell unpopular reform policies to Spanish businesses and the public.
A general strike has been called for September 29th after Zapatero’s government said it would press ahead with labour market reforms that would make it easier to hire and fire workers.
“Even if a general strike takes place on September 29th, I will continue dialogue with the labour union the following day,” Zapatero said. The general strike will be Spain’s first since 2002.
Zapatero noted work hours had been slashed in both Germany and Spain in the past but German unions had agreed to pay cuts. “Spain was unable to achieve the flexible reform and change that were possible in Germany,” he said
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the government argue the reform would help reduce Spain’s unemployment rate and government spending on jobless benefits. But unions object to seeing workers’ rights weakened and are also unhappy with plans to raise the retirement age to 67, from 65, and other austerity measures that will cut civil servants’ wages.
Zapatero, who is in Japan until Thursday to promote economic ties, said the Spanish economy was recovering from a severe recession faster than other European Union countries. “We do not need assistance from the EU or IMF and we have never thought it would be necessary,” he said. Given confidence in the Spanish banking system, he said there was no need to inject more public funds into banks.
Markets have been jittery over Spain’s high public deficit, which peaked at 11.2 percent of gross domestic product last year, fearing the country could suffer the same fate as Greece, which needed an EU-IMF bailout. But Spain has recently seen firm demand for its bonds issuance on abating investor concerns over the nation’s ability to cut its fiscal gap.
Spain plunged into its worst recession in decades at the end of 2008 after the Spanish real estate bubble burst, but has returned to growth this year.
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