Two pieces on Spain from The Telegraph - first note the crackdown on protesting being contemplated ! Second , are we seeing the first sign that Spain ( if not publicly from their leading pols just yet ) have come to realize the Iceland strategy might work best ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/9198496/Spain-accused-of-draconian-plans-to-clamp-down-on-protests.html

By Fiona Govan, Madrid

7:54PM BST 11 Apr 2012

53 Comments

Jorge Fernandez Diaz, the Spanish interior minister announced in Congress on Wednesday that a reform of the penal code was planned to criminalise those involved in organising street protests that "seriously disturb the public peace".

Under the laws, a minimum jail term of two years could be imposed on those found guilty of instigating and carrying out violent acts of protest under a new package of measures unveiled on Wednesday.

But it has raised fears that the new measures could be used to stem the wave of protests that began last summer with the birth of what has been dubbed the "indignado movement", when tens ouf thousands of peaceful protesters camped out in squares across Spain.

Protest groups were quick to draw comparisons to the fascist dictatorship of Gen Grancisco Franco.

The measures come amid growing incidents of street violence in cities across Spain, most notably Barcelona where "anti-capitalist" groups were blamed for stirring tensions during last month's general strike.

The strike on March 29 was marred by clashes between police and individuals who torched bins, threw missiles at businesses including banks and vandalised the Barcelona Stock Exchange in the Catalan capital.

A Starbucks café was also torched during the protests when police fired rubber bullets and used tear gas as the protests spiralled out of control.

Mr Diaz said "serious disturbances of public order and intent to organise violent demonstrations through means such as social networking" would carry the same penalty as involvement in a criminal organisation under the new reform.

But he also said that the measures would extend authorities powers to deal with passive resistance as contempt of court.

The measures will make it "an offence to breach authority using mass active or passive resistance against security forces and to include as a crime of assault any threatening or intimidating behaviour," he said in Congress.

In addition attempts to disrupt public services such as transportation would also be made a crime. During the recent general strike picketers blockaded bus and train stations in an attempt to bring transportation to a halt.

"New measures are needed to combat the spiral of violence practised by 'anti-system' groups using urban guerrilla warfare," the Interior Ministry clarified in a later statement.

The measures brought swift criticism from protest groups and became a trending topic on Twitter. The terms "#soycriminial" (I'm a criminal) and "Holadictatura" immediately became popular trending topics.

Comparisons were drawn with Cuba, where peaceful protesters are routinely rounded up by the communist regime, and with Spain's dark days of the Franco dictatorship which ended with his death in 1975.

"We fought for freedom and civil rights during the dictatorship of Franco only to lose them now," one Twitter user, @Iaioflautas wrote.

Another, @Mordorpress said that the government of Mariano Rajoy was a step back to dictatorship. "Goodbye democracy, you only lasted 30 years," he wrote.

Protests against the reforms of the penal code have already been called for Saturday.

The new measures were announced just days after Felip Puig, the Minister of the Interior of Catalonia's regional government, called for measures to limit "social assemblies". They will be debated in parliament and voted on during the current parliamentary session.

and....

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100016130/spanish-epiphany-as-depression-deepens/

Spanish epiphany as depression deepens?

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Economics Last updated: April 11th, 2012

410 Comments Comment on this article

The Spanish economic crisis has become all too visible (Photo: AP)

Spain’s industrial output is sliding at an accelerating rate, as is entirely predictable if you enforce draconian fiscal tightening on an economy in deep recession with no offsetting monetary stimulus or exchange rate devaluation.

The latest data show that output fell 5.1% (y/y) in February, after 4.3% in January and 3.5% in December.

Durable goods fell 14.8pc, the sixth successive monthly fall. Capital goods output fell 10.6pc, according to Raj Badiani from IHS Global Insight.

This is politically untenable. Unemployment is already 23.6pc on the Eurostat measure. David Owen from Jefferies Fixed Income expects this to reach 27.5pc by the end of the year (which is roughly 32pc using the old measure from the 1990s, based on a Bank of Spain study).

Prof Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde says the German-imposed drive to cut the budget deficit from 8.5pc to 3pc over two years in a slump is a "recipe for disaster". It will not fly in a country where the two main trade unions are "living in the 19th century" and where there is no national consensus on the nature of the problem at hand. There will be a revolt.

Indeed, the interior minister today introduced new measures to prevent plots using "urban guerrila" warfare methods to incite protests that pose a grave threat to public order. Is this the start of coercion? I hope not. Spanish democracy is worth more than a mere currency.

The professor told me that Germans were "crazy" to try to impose such self-defeating austerity. The EU dictates should be resisted. Premier Mariano Rajoy should take a leaf from David Cameron's book and risk a full-fledged showdown, instead of quibbling over details in mini-spats that achieve little. "What is the EU going to do? Send in the army?"

In a joint oped piece  with other Spanish economists in El Mundo he said EU-IMF rescues for the eurozone are pointless because they don’t go to the root of the crisis. They do not restore lost competitiveness through devaluation.

They argue that Spain’s is sliding towards a full-blown crisis and an EU bail-out on the current policy settings. This must be avoided at all costs because the terms of these packages are shaped and enforced by the EU creditor states with their own interests at stake, not by a neutral IMF acting as an honest broker.

Having followed the Spanish press closely over the last five years or so, I am surprised by the sudden change of tone – as if the country has gone through an intellectual epiphany.

Articles calling for Spain to withdraw from EMU – or at least exploring the idea – are no longer rare. They are appearing every day. Here is one today by Federico Quevedo in El Confidencial: "The only alternative for Rajoy: take Spain out of the euro".

Loosely translated, he says "the only way out for Rajoy is to force Brussels and above all Berlin to make the ECB act as it should act – as a lender of last resort for economies with problems such as ours – by threatening to leave the euro, and even if the threat becomes reality it would surely be the least of our problems and might even be the solution".

What is striking is the response on the comment threads of such pieces. My impression over the last month is that a large bloc of informed Spanish opinion has reached the conclusion that EMU is dysfunctional, and increasingly destructive for Spain. Many posters seem extremely well-informed, using terminology such as "debt-traps", "internal devaluations", and "relative unit labour costs".

Many point the finger directly at Germany, correctly stating that Berlin seems to think it can lock in a current account surplus with Club Med in perpetuity. Clearly, such as an arrangement is mathematically impossible within a currency union – unless Germany is willing to offset the surplus with flows of money for ever, either through fiscal transfers or loans or investment. These flows have been cut off.

Opinion is divided, of course. The pro-euro camp is still a majority. But the smothering conformity of past years has been obliterated.

The Spanish reading public now has a very good grasp of the fundamental realities of EMU. This will have consequences. Spain is not on the fringes of the Balkans, terrified of being cast into Ottoman banishment. It is not a small country that can be pushed around for year after year.

How and when all this will end is anybody’s guess but I have suspected for a long time that Spain is the lynchpin of the system. The intellectual atmosphere has changed entirely. Politics must surely follow.