An amusing and presumably unintended glimpse of the Spanish economic pushmi-pullyu--are structural reforms for real or merely for foreigners?--is to be found on slide 22 of the "Kingdom of Spain Economic Policy and 2010 Funding Strategy" used by Secretary Campa yesterday in London (via):
Can we implement this? We have done it in the past, which proves our compromise, the quality of our public finances, and the success of our fiscal discipline.
Damn, damn, damn! "Compromiso" in Spanish is a commitment in English, while "compromise" in English means in Spanish that you're going to do whatever the trade unions tell you. If Ms Salgado had sent the whole Powerpoint to a decent translator tagged "urgent" and taken him to dinner afterwards, then she'd still have had change out of 1,000€. But hey, why waste money on translation when you're going to lose the next elections anyway?
The Mr Hyde of the Zapatero government's deeds can be found in the Spanish press, but here's Dr Jekyll:
Labels: Gobierno de España