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Rajoy’s Blown Credibility Puts Spain at Risk of Sovereign Rescue
By Ben Sills - Jun 22, 2012 12:01 AM GMT+0200


Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has spent much of the political capital he won seven months ago in the biggest landslide in 30 years, floundering against a crisis that risks making Spain the first $1 trillion economy to need a sovereign bailout, investors and analysts say.

Rajoy, singled out by leaders at the Group of 20 summit, has been taunted by opposition lawmakers and commentators as borrowing costs soared to a euro-era record even after Spain’s banks received a 100 billion-euro ($127 billion) lifeline. Rajoy called the rescue a victory that solved lenders’ problems.
Enlarge image Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy

Mariano Rajoy, Spain's prime minister. Photographer: Angel Navarrete/Bloomberg
Economist Says France May Join Germany Blocking Aid

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June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Brendan Brown, chief economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities, discusses Germany's resistance to more euro-zone bailouts and the possibility that France and the Netherlands may adopt a similar stance. He talks with Owen Thomas on Bloomberg Television's "First Look." (Source: Bloomberg)

“He clearly doesn’t get it,” said Gary Jenkins, founder of Swordfish Research Ltd. near London, who has tracked bond markets for more than 15 years. “Spain needs someone who can come in and grasp the seriousness of the situation and react to that, not just pretend everything’s okay.”

The Spanish-bank bailout made Italy the next potential investor target. Together, they could overwhelm the sums committed to safeguard the 17-nation currency bloc. Southern Europe’s two major economies have 2.8 trillion euros of government debt, four times the total of Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

“A rescue for Italy is pretty much impossible without a major change in German borrowing costs, a major change in overall euro-zone levels of inflation, a major change in the level of the euro, or a major change in the structure of the euro zone,” Jamie Stuttard, Fidelity Investments’s head of international bond portfolio management in London, said in a telephone interview on June 19.
Rome Summit

Rajoy, 57, who was told by Germany’s Angela Merkel at the G-20 in Mexico June 19 to spell out the depth of his banks’ needs “as soon as possible,” will be under scrutiny today when he faces Merkel and French President Francois Hollande at a meeting in Rome hosted by Italy’s Mario Monti.

The contrast between the unelected Monti, praised by global counterparts for his bid to bring order to Italy’s finances, and Rajoy, who came to power just weeks later, is underscored in the bond markets.

When Rajoy took office in December, Italy’s 10-year yields were surging above 7 percent and comparable Spanish debt traded as much as 200 basis points lower. Now, Spain’s 10-year notes yield 87 basis points more than Italy’s.

The International Monetary Fund June 8 urged Spain that devising an “effective communication” strategy is “critical” for financial stability.
‘Entirely Avoidable’

“The Spanish problem was entirely avoidable,” said Thomas Mayer, a Frankfurt-based economic adviser to Deutsche Bank AG. “This has been created by miscommunication.”

The run-up to the bank bailout was marked by policy reversals and self-contradictions by Rajoy, who lost two general elections in Spain before ousting the governing Socialist Party in November.

Rajoy called for the euro region’s rescue fund to recapitalize distressed lenders on May 28, even as he argued that Spanish lenders won’t need external support. On June 2, he called on euro members to give up sovereignty over their budgets to cement a fiscal union, reversing his stance from three months earlier. That’s when he said budgets were a sovereign matter as he defied deficit commitments to the European Union.

The following week, he left it to Economy Minister Luis de Guindos to explain the bank rescue. Eighteen hours later, with Spaniards posting criticism on Twitter with the hashtag #RajoyCobarde -- Rajoy, coward -- and El Pais newspaper accusing him of hiding, the premier spoke to the press.
Rescue Winners

“Yesterday, the credibility of the euro won, yesterday the future won,” he said on June 10. “Yesterday, the European Union won.”

Then, he announced that since the banks’ funding problems were resolved he would continue with his plans to watch the national soccer team play that night and climbed aboard his government jet to fly to the Polish city of Gdansk.

“People were astonished that he was going off to Poland,” Jonathan Tepper, a partner at London-based investment research firm Variant Perception, said in a telephone interview. “Things like that make him look completely incompetent.”

A spokeswoman for Rajoy who asked not to be named said the premier wanted to be clear the June 9 agreement was not a bailout for the sovereign and he wasn’t denying reality. Spain has not been dragging its feet over the aid request since the official position has been that they would wait for yesterday’s stress-test results to decide how much capital would be required, she added.
Yield Surge

Spanish 10-year government bond yields rose as much as 76 basis points in the week that followed, the biggest weekly gain since 1997 and commentators and rival politicians mocked Rajoy for refusing to acknowledge that the loan deal was a bailout.

“Say it with me, it’s - a - res - cue,” Rosa Diez, leader of a minority group, taunted the prime minister in parliament. “Nothing bad’s going to happen if you say it.”

Rajoy’s budget cutting faces virtually no reduction in the 350-member parliament, where his People’s Party has 185 seats.

Still, his standing with the public has taken a beating. A poll conducted for El Mundo by Sigma Dos between June 12 and June 14 showed Rajoy’s disapproval rating doubled to 43 percent from January.

In Mexico, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said it wasn’t all Rajoy’s fault, criticizing Europe’s leaders for fumbling the bailout.

“To have that being a negative story is amazing” given the amount of money pledged, Zoellick told a June 17 panel discussion at the meeting in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos. “The execution was extremely poor.”

“He clearly doesn’t get it,” said Gary Jenkins, founder of Swordfish Research Ltd. near London, who has tracked bond markets for more than 15 years. “Spain needs someone who can come in and grasp the seriousness of the situation and react to that, not just pretend everything’s okay.”

( Claramente no se entera de nada, dijo.... España necesita a alguien que comprenda lo serio de la situación y reaccione ante ella, no que pretenda que todo está bien)

Esto lo dicen de mí en en el trabajo y me suicido...

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Es que no entienden la idiosincracia gallega de Rajoy.

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Que Rajoy es un incompetente está claro. Lo que es más raro es que lo digan tan claramente en tantos medios de comunicación. No es el primer político malísimo que tiene un país. Se podría pensar que están pensando en hacer el tercer cambio, después de Berlusconi y Papandreu...

¿Hay algún tecnócrata pepero calentando en la banda? Si el Gobierno fuera del PSOE tendría claro que el siguiente sería Almunia. Pero siendo del PP, no lo sé.

Rajoy es 100% IdiotSinGracia.

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¿Qué hay de De Guindos ? Le conocen fuera, ha sido el gestor de la crisis por delegación de Rajoy y no ha recibido ataques por ello.

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"...que no finja que toda está bien"

Pero sí. Me choca mucho la actitud tan, tan provincial de Rajoy. No parece darse cuenta de que el mundo le está escrutando (con ojos de plato).

Tiene un discurso para sus votantes (que a cualquier observador con dos dedos de frente le suena a tomadura de pelo) y otro discurso hacia el exterior. Incurre en incoherencias cuando habla en el parlamento, cuando habla para los medios nacionales y cuando habla en cumbres internacionales. ¿Se cree realmente que nadie se da cuenta?

Creo, sinceramente, que es sintomático de un mal endémico en toda la política española, que es: "no importa lo que diga o haga, no tiene mayores consecuencias, me seguirán votando".

La política no funciona así en gran parte del resto del mundo, por eso Rajoy, con su única oportunidad para hacer una buena primera impresión, la ha jodido - y mucho.

Lo que está claro es que ya le han calado bien desde fuera, lo llaman incompetente sin ningún tapujo y en medios serios, para mi que este señor pierde el cargo antes de que llegue septiembre, lo van a largar a el y a su cuadrilla de trileros ineptos que nos toman a todos por bobos.

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Me atrevería a decir que la líder-esa desde hace unos meses está intentando hacerse notas (más si cabe) con sus típicas declaraciones raras/soflamas no ya para el populismo interior de consumo de sus votantes, sino para un "populismo pro-recortes" dirigido a instancias superiores europeas o de mercados.

Sus últimas perlas no tienen mucho sentido si no se piensa en algo así, porque aunque pueden contentar aún a una parte cada vez más pequeña del electorado, creo que en general son contraproducentes... salvo que se piense en que van dirigidas a Bruselas: "Bajar aún más los sueldos de los funcionarios" (ya van 3, otra haría la 4ª), "eliminación de competencias de CCAA o incluso redibujar CCAAs", "disminución a la mitad el tamaño de los parlamentos autonómicos", ahora "Suprimir el Tribunal Constitucional"...

Insisto que esa música podría sonar bien a parte de la ciudadanía, pero no casa muy bien con las otras cosas que no hace más que decir de recortes en casi todas las áreas, etc, etc... Personalmente creo que está tratando de hacerse notar fuera, con imagen de gestora dispuesta a recortar donde haga falta incluyendo en las competencias triplicadas, y a ver si aunque no sea una "tecnócrata" propiamente dicha igual cuela...

Ojo, que no digo que a mí me gustase ella de presidenta del gobierno (Dios nos coja confesados. Eso sí, al menos la señora tiene más sangre en las venas que Mariano), digo que creo que ella está postulándose poco a poco, a ver si...

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Bueno, fuera bromas,como he escrito en otro post Rajoy se está comportando como en el comité del PP de su pueblo. Su táctica favorita es desaparecer hasta que el resto de los contrincantes se maten entre ellos, y si no tienen pinta de morir, no clarearse sobre sus intenciones para que no le exijan compromisos con ningún bando.

Lo que pasa es que de ésta no puede salir con semejante táctica.



En ese caso tiene una idea exageradísima de su propia importancia. En Bruselas debe de resultar menos conocida que el barman del restaurante del Parlamento .

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