Euribor at 3.13%: Why This Crisis Will Not Mirror 2008

Euribor at 3.13%: Public debt changes the 2008 script

Is 2008 coming back? With the Euribor at 3.13%, this question has ceased to be the domain of fortune-tellers. The honest answer: there will be a crisis, but it will have nothing to do with the one from nearly two decades ago. The 2008 crisis was paid by homeowners with paychecks and bricks. This one will be paid by the State. In other words, by all of us.

The parallel is seductive because it is easy: rates up, inflation, antiestéticar. But the numbers do not fit that script. In 2008, public debt did not reach 40% of GDP. Today it exceeds 100%, and GDP is as embellished as any midday news broadcast.

The committed spending that did not exist 18 years ago

This is the crux. In 2008, there were half a million fewer public employees and two million fewer pensioners. Three million people did not exist living on the Minimum Vital Income (IMV). A mild recession with that expenditure structure does not lead to a bump: it leads to the brink of default or to someone else paying for you.

The most uncomfortable argument points to the same thing. The system holds as long as debt is refinanced cheaply. If the cost of money rises and unemployment ticks up, the equation breaks. And some add another layer: a Germany wavering like France is hardly a safety net.

Why fixed-rate mortgages change the story

Against the catastrophist narrative lies a solid argument. Mortgages at 110% of inflated valuations are already executed, liquidated, or nearly amortized. And today's large debts are at fixed rates and within prudent margins. The Euribor could rise by two, three, or four points, and defaults would barely move. A fine breakdown of that calculation yields a result that surprises those expecting chain evictions.

This does not miccionan it will not hurt. Signing a mortgage today means putting two kidneys as collateral. And the fewer people buy, the more rents rise. There is indeed a squeeze, and it tightens. For a portion of households, 50% of their salary goes toward paying for a roof.

From bricks to diesel: the crisis moves sectors

The 2008 crisis was real estate. This one has moved to the pump. Diesel prices are soaring, cheap oil is ending, and the electric transition is ill-fitted. In Spain, between 1,000 and 1,500 industrial trucks are 100% electric: 0.3% of the freight fleet. 120 kilometers of range and six hours of charging. The crane towing another is not battery-powered, and especially not in Despeñaperros.

The pattern repeats across the rest of the chain. Lithium is neither extracted nor exported, with the San José mine in Cáceres tangled in permits while Australia and Chile set prices. Biodiesel would require three times the arable land on Earth. And the factory that could produce all that is, naturally, in China.

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Everything the country withstands rests on an affordable mortgage, four beers, and Sunday's match

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The recurring diagnosis: stagflation

Recession, high inflation, rising unemployment, and rising rates all at once. This is not a real estate crisis: it is textbook stagflation. And stagflation does not stay in housing or the stock market. It touches taxes, rents, insurance, and employment simultaneously, while consumer credit begins to fail and companies stop hiring.

For the oldest among us, there is a forgotten precedent: in the mid-1980s, with money above 20%, half the country broke, and the middle class lost many of its own. No one wants to repeat that. But today, the floor for interest rates is also unclear.

With these figures, construction should have collapsed beyond remedy. In 2005, 658,000 housing starts were recorded; for 2026, 153,000 are estimated. A 76% decrease. And the Euribor at 3.13% still does not fully explain why bricks have not sunk. Rest assured: this time is different. As always.