Saving Portugal and Spain: Introduction

For a while i would like to devote my time and the space on this blog on the quest to save these countries from the economic turmoil they are in. I chose Portugal and Spain because I think that even though the problems that they are facing and their economic structures, language and culture are quite different; the problems are similar enough to at least consider some form of similar approach. This I do not think about the three other EU countries in trouble: Ireland, Italy and Greece. But even for them there might be something in this blog.

This first post( in a long line) is about why it is important to care about the problems on the Iberian peninsula. For me it is quite simple, after living in Portugal for half a year: então parte da minha alma é português :-). Furthermore my girlfriend and here family as well as mine and her friends still live in Portugal. Also in Spain I have quite some friends, so I guess I'm quite biased here... But also for somebody that has no direct connection it is important that these countries do not sink further in economic crisis.

First there are the costs for the people in there themselves. A lot of people that are like us are facing a deep recession, unemployment (yes even more than we do), sharp increases in prices, sharp decreases in the services that you expect from a government in Europe and a lot more.

But also for other European countries there are problems. there is the economic perspective, a lot of the exports from northern Europe go to southern Europe. I might be mistaken but i think that the crisis is starting to hit German exports (e.g. cars) to these countries. Then there is the financial world: for a country to be seriously indebted there needed to be banks willing to lend it money, in the case of Greece those were French banks (which are now mysteriously at the brink of bankruptcy). In the case of Portugal and Spain i am quite sure that other North-European banks have the most exposure again.

Finally, I see this also as a test for Europe. If we can make it through this crisis together, Europe will be stronger regardless of the exact configuration of power. If we fail to make it trough we are back to where we started with the ECSC. So my message is that it is in the interest for all Europeans to solve this crisis.