. The financial instability worldwide forced the U.S. Congress to debate about the debt ceiling and the European Union to agree to a new bailout for Greece.
In Spain, besides these financial issues, we have to take in account the announcement that President Zapatero made on July 29 when he called early elections in November instead of March 2012.
The main reason for the decision to speed up the electoral process this year was to have a new government by January that will be able to handle the necessary adjustments to economic policy.It’s clear that a sped up electoral campaign, huge market instability, Spain’s risk premium runaway, and the EU encouraging the state members to implement new rules, make an explosive cocktail.The market targeted Italy and Spain as a lion does with its prey. The situation demanded that Spain send out a powerful and believable message of solvency.With this urgency, on August 23, in the first debate at the Congress after a short vacation, the president announced a Constitutional reform. That was unexpected for most of the chamber and what’s more, it wasn’t included in the agenda of that day. The reform called members of Congress to set a deficit ceiling.This reform is the second one in the 35 year history of the valid Spanish Constitution, and it’s being passed in an unbelievably record time, because both chambers has to be dissolved by the end of this month.The main party of the opposition, which is leading the polls to become the party in power after November elections, gave support to the government. That agreement was historical for two reasons. First, the Congress approved the reform gathering around 90 percent of the chamber seats. Secondly, this is one of the few times both parties were in agreeance.The atmosphere in this week was unsettling because the small parties in Congress and even members within the socialist party expressed their opposition. They criticized the Popular party and socialist party for the rushed way this process was undertaken. And also they criticized because one change in the most important law is going to be done without referendum, which means that the people will not have a vote. But it has to be said, that a popular vote is not mandatory unless 10 percent of the chamber members ask for it.Now the project is in the Senate waiting for approval. And in less than two weeks it will pass again though the Congress, just in time for the dissolution of both chambers, 55 days before election day.There are a lot of questions about this reform. It remains to be seen if this movement is going to instill credibility and confidence in our economy and calm down the market. However, we cannot expect immediate real results because this new law won’t be in effect until 2020.Furthermore, it’s going to be interesting how this change in the constitutional article is going to affect the new socialist candidate–a former vice-president of the current government–in his aspirations to succeed in La Moncloa.
