Zapatero zapped by friends and foes

“Total distrust", headlines ABC. On the morning after the Madrid stock exchange plunged 6%, the conservative daily points at Spain’s "crisis of credibility", which puts prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in a tricky position. This is all too clear with latest polls giving the conservative Partido Popular (PP) a four point advantage over the president’s Socialist PSOE. ABC criticizes the socialist leader and his "chain of mistakes at Davos and Brussels". The “frivolous and distant” Zapatero is also accused of "having cosied down into an unreal world". Demanding "urgent decisions", ABC laments that that his "passivity and inefficiency have condemned Spain to years of obscurity".

El Mundo, however, applies some balm by soothingly reporting on Zapatero’s 4 February visit to Washington, where Obama invited him to the interestingly monikered "National Prayer Breakfast". Zapatero succeeded “in making a speech based on universal ethical values, and connected with the auditorium". The daily is apparently relieved that "Zapatero has finished trying to look like Aznar [his conservative predecessor] in his effort to show how close he is to the president of the US".

This avowed agnostic might be wowing Christians in the US, but El País reminds readers that increasing strife in the Spanish economy is tarnishing Zapatero’s image at home. In a less than low-key editorial entitled "Alarm, almost panic", the centre-left newspaper considers that the reason for investor doubts over the Spanish economy is that “they have connected Greece’s failure with the weakness of Spain’s finances’ and that “the disaster might continue” if the President “doesn’t convince investors that public finances can stabilize in a reasonable period of time”. The newspaper notes that if the President thought his US junket would make him look good nationally, then “the bad news that coincided must have frustrated him”.

Indeed, the Spanish public is an inward-looking mood. According to a poll published by the Madrid daily, 77% of opinion is sceptical about the benefits of Spain’s EU presidency. One positive point, if it can be described as such, is in relation to the confusing balance of power in the EU, with 32% considering that Zapatero leads the EU this semester against 21% who think that Van Rompuy holds the reins. Meanwhile, there has been widespread consternation after remarks made by Spain’s outgoing commissioner for Economic Affairs Joaquín Almunia, who “has compared Spain to Greece”. Analyst Fernando Vallespín declares himself tired of seeing Spain lumped in the same bag. And also of Spain’s place in PIGS - Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, a less than flattering term for the weakest EU economies. He considers the acronym a “Freudian slip” illustrative of a typical northern European bias of a Protestant work-ethic variety. A bias, he accuses, propagated by organs such as the “Financial Times and tutti quanti”.

Spanische Maus gegen fette Weltkatze

In a similar spirit of defiance, Público draws attention to “an increasing revolt”, referring to the call on the part of Spain’s largest trade union for a wave of protests. Indeed, criticism comes down from sides, even within the ranks of the PSOE, over Zapatero’s abrupt decision to push retirement age from 65 to 67. Forced into an embrassing climbdown by rescinding on his stated aim to have pensions calculated over a 25 year basis rather than 15, he then comes in for a bashing from the above-quoted El Mundo, with conservative op-ed writer Justino Sinova lambasting the “improvisations, ups and downs and chaos of Zapatero and his government". With invective coming in from all sides, it comes down to Público editorialist Ignacio Escolar to take a broader view, describing Spain as “the new epicentre of the global crisis,” the latest victim in a global game where “speculator cats” play with mice.