El País attacks Zapatero: Spanish socialism loses faith

| 06-09-2009 | Spanish Politics | Written by Matthew Bennett

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El País, the left-of-centre Spanish newspaper which has most vigorously supported Zapatero’s socialist government and which belongs to the left-leaning PRISA media empire, has launched a truly astonishing journalistic attack this morning on Zapatero’s government and his (mis-)handling of the Spanish economy.

When I read the article online this morning, I nearly choked on my coffee: I thought it was a big, important story given the current state of things in Spain. Then I went out for a walk and bought the print edition. This article isn’t big: it’s huge. It’s absolutely massive in its implications for the current debate over the Spanish economy and, perhaps, for Spanish politics and Zapatero’s government.

El País attacks Zapatero, the hapless Captain of the Great Ship Spain

Journalistic Artilllery

It is an eighteen-page frontal assault on Zapatero’s handling of Spain’s economy; eight different journalists get bylines. It is the business section’s main effort in the Sunday edition of the paper: the one which people actually take an hour or so to sit down and read over Sunday breakfast.

Forget the picture of a young Michelle Obama on the cover of the Sunday supplement; forget about the picture of a Taliban holding a Kalishnikov on the front page (although that’s a good article too) or the measly two-column front-page headline saying that a Spanish accountant paid Valencia’s Popular Party in black, undeclared money (shock, horror, undeclared earnings – in Spain!?), which is a journalistic diversionary tactic.

The only thing missing is for El País to have presented the attack as a five-column front-page headline, but they could hardly have headlined their own attack as the most important story in Spain this morning.

They’ve even opted for a touch of irony more reminiscent of rival newspaper El Mundo with a photo and quote from Trinidad Jiménez (Spanish Health minister) at the top of the front page: “In times of crisis, I know how to react with resolve.”

To get an idea of the importance of the El Pais attack, imagine if The New York Times had suddenly attacked Obama with an eighteen-page assault on his economic policies and management in its business section, or if The Guardian had done likewise with Gordon Brown in the UK.

‘Spain, adrift’

The centre piece of the attack (the main headline of which – ‘Spain, adrift‘ – is scathing enough) is a 3,700 word feature article in which every paragraph is critical of the current socialist government’s (complete lack) of any kind of coherent economic policy. The article ends with a quote from the hotly-debated, capitalist Venture Perception investment analysis report that even conservative Spanish analysts have tried to argue is wrong.

The centre-piece article is titled ‘Donde dije digo…digo impuesto‘ which is a play on words in Spanish that in English would end up being something like ‘What I said was clear…but what I meant to say was ‘taxes’‘ and is accompanied by an editorial cartoon of a hapless Zapatero randomly spinning the wheel of the Great Ship Spain as he ’steers’ through choppy waters infested with sharks labelled ‘deficit‘, ‘GDP‘ and ‘unemployment‘.

To my mind, there are three important aspects to this article:

1. First of all, that El País has even decided to publish it. The decision of a particular newspaper to publish or not publish a story, and how and where they decide to publish it, is often indicative of that newspaper’s political leanings and current editorial line. El País has just decided it doesn’t like Zapatero’s government. Some conservative Spanish commentators are suggesting this morning that this is basically related to a business spat between PRISA (which owns El País) and Zapatero’s government over its recent favouring of other media outlets in awarding media licences but I think that – while it has probably played its part in their decision – this morning’s articles are much more significant;
2. Secondly, it is now very clear that there is a huge division within Spanish socialism and that the crack has appeared between those Spanish socialists who understand economic and business matters (most notably former Finance minister Solbes or former Public Administration minister Sevilla) and those who don’t. El País has decided that there are enough in the first camp to warrant an open attack on the socialist government. This will have important implications for the political stability of the country and for Zapatero’s government in the coming months;
3. Thirdly, that those socialists who do understand economic matters are worried that if Zapatero and his government continue along this path, things will get even worse. The article explains how the other important players in the Spanish economy – the big businessmen and the trade unions – are extremely worried about the lack of coherence in the government’s thoughts, communications and actions.

I get the impression that, among many other things, they are really worried that all this indecision and randomness might induce capital flight – not of foreign capitals which perhaps don’t realise what’s going on yet – but of domestic investors deciding Spain is not the place to be, although foreign investors would surely not delay in jumping overboard if their Spanish colleagues also thought that was the best option.

If that happened and was added to the massive unemployment and business destruction which have already occurred, along with the massive increase in public spending which has already taken place, Spain would be in a very sorry state indeed.