The main post-pandemic challenges for the Spanish economy. Appearance before the Parliamentary Committee for the Economic and Social Reconstruction of Spain after COVID-19. Congress of Deputies – 23 June 2020
Series: Occasional Papers. 2024.
Author: Pablo Hernández de Cos.
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Abstract
The COVID-19 crisis has elicited an immediate and forceful economic policy response.
With the height of the crisis behind us, the Governor has set out priority economic measures
for the post-lockdown phase. He calls for the urgent launch of an ambitious, comprehensive,
permanent and assessable strategy of structural reforms and fiscal consolidation.
In this second, gradual-recovery phase, laying the foundations for sustainable and balanced
growth will involve the economic policy response combining two objectives: to support the
recovery and to provide for structural adjustment. And, in this scenario, public finances
sustainability must be ensured.
Three elements are needed to boost the credibility and effectiveness of this initial response
and of the entire reform strategy. First, the fiscal expansion in the short term should go
hand-in-hand with a plan to restore health to public finances in the medium term, once the
economy resumes a sound growth path. Second, structural reforms should be expedited so
they positively affect spending, investment and hiring decisions in the very short term. And
third, political consensus must ensure the durability of the strategy over several legislatures.
In the short run, the policies supporting the recovery should be attuned to the health situation and economic circumstances. That will involve maintaining monetary and financial measures geared to preserving appropriate access to financing. It will further entail extending and recalibrating income support and furlough schemes. New measures will also be needed, namely: active labour market and training policies for the unemployed; enhanced business restructuring and insolvency procedures; and a fiscal impulse for the restructuring of the productive system through investment in technological capital, education and training.
In the medium term, the Spanish economy’s main challenges will determine the structural
reform agenda needed to increase our potential growth over the coming years. The paper
details the measures on this agenda in response to each of the challenges identified:
i) to improve productivity dynamics (promotion of business dynamics and growth, increased
sectoral competition, enhanced human capital and an increase in technological capital);
ii) to reduce unemployment and job insecurity (with a lower temporary employment ratio and
active labour market policies); iii) to address population ageing (pensions system reform);
iv) to bolster inclusion policies (minimum living income and housing affordability); v) to smooth the transition to a more sustainable economy (via fiscal policy and the financial system); vi) to maintain a healthy financial sector; vii) to tackle new challenges (globalisation and digitalisation); viii) to drive forward European governance reform (an appropriate European recovery fund, headway in the fiscal union, Stability and Growth Pact reform, completion of the Banking Union and a genuine Capital Markets Union); and ix) to ensure the sustainability of public finances (an ambitious multi-year fiscal consolidation programme).