Ramón Tamames, professor of Economic Structure at the Autonomous University of Madrid, gave a talk yesterday at UIC Barcelona entitled “Is a second major global recession possible? The impact of internal and external turmoil on the Spanish economy”, organized by the Faculty of Law and the Catalan Civil Society Foundation.
The speaker firstly asserted that “there won’t be a second recession” in contrast to recent speculations. During the course of the session, he went more deeply into the state of the global economy. Amongst other things, he claimed that “It is logical for there to be a slowdown because you can’t be growing constantly. We have also come to a technological buffer; in contrast to the 1980s, everything has already been capitalised upon.”
The holder of the "Jean Monnet" European Chair also spoke about economic powerhouses such as the USA, the EU and China. On this last country, he claimed that although some of its territories are quite indebted, “it is not experiencing the type of financial bubble that we did here.” He added that the Asian giant is changing its strategy with a view to “exporting less and paying more attention to its internal requirements.”
On the subject of Europe, Tamames confirmed that “the Junker Plan is not working. The euro has depreciated by more than 30%.”
Finally, the economist discussed Spain, which he highlighted as the country with the highest growth in the European Union. In his own words, “although they are not properly appreciated here, the economic reforms have been meaningful.” Even so, he believes there is a need for reform in public administration, which “continues to be too unwieldy.”
He also asserted that during the years of the crisis “there was a change in the model, we have gone from depending on construction to an export model which is what we needed to do.” And continued: “Our tourism industry continues to grow, the labour reform along EU lines has worked, public debt has improved, there has been a certain move towards de-industrialisation and the banking industry is in a state of turmoil”.
To conclude, he appealed directly to the students: “you need to study, specialise in something without losing an overall perspective, and learn how to tackle problems.”
The event was opened by Javier Junceda, Dean of the Faculty of Law, and closed by Jacinto Soler Padró, president of the Catalan Civil Society Foundation.
The lecture formed part of the series of continuing education conferences organised by the Faculty of Law. These lectures are organized every year to give students a closer insight into new trends and demands in the legal sector and are delivered by respected professionals who have experienced these situations in person.
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