For the last few months rumours have been circulating in Spain that once the European elections were done and dusted, the Troika would be back with a vengeance to tighten the vice (Joe Pesci style) on the country’s flagging economy. Lo behold, on Tuesday, with the dust still settling from the elections, the IMF dispatched its suited-and-booted troops of highly trained economists to Madrid to impose a new round of structural conditions.
“The people must pay” if they want to maintain the current levels of public services, warned James Daniel, the man in charge of the IMF’s mission in Spain, who, as an employee of the IMF, pays no incomes taxes whatsoever to any government.
In total, more than 38 billion euros must be pruned from government spending in the next two years if the country is to meet its budget deficit target of 2.8 percent by 2016.
To achieve…
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