The heavily indebted Spanish economy is in almost as bad shape as that of Greece. But the Spanish economy accounts for 12% of European Union gross domestic product, 4 times the size of the Greek economy. Some say this makes it too big to fail. Undoubtedly its failure could mean the death of the EU and the single European currency, sparking an every-country-for-itself financial free-for-all that no one could predict the outcome of.
Needless to say European and World leaders are keen to stop this happening. This led to them — including a personal intervention from Barack Obama — putting pressure on Spain’s minority left wing Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, to enact a strict regime of austerity in order to bring down the budget deficit and the country’s debt to put the world and its markets at ease.



