So far, we have seen how inadequate investment in productive capital, technological backwardness and the limited organizational changes that have characterized the Spanish economy have marked its lag in productivity and its losses in competitiveness. In addition, a productive structure based on labour-intensive sectors, coupled with the diversity of employment contracts in our country and labour market regulations, too overprotective of permanent workers, have pushed companies to choose temporary employment, the redundancy costs of which are, for the employer, much lower.

The growth patterns of the global economy after the crisis begin to differ substantially from those we envisaged back in 2009 and which continued during the Great Recession. At that time, we witnessed a decoupling between the damaged developed economies and the thriving emerging economies led by the BRICs, as well as the asymmetric effects caused by a crisis of balance between providers and recipients of capital. At the core of the financial crisis lay an accumulation of unprecedented monetary reserves in the emerging countries as a result of rocketing exports triggered by three decades of continuous gains in productivity and increased exports of raw materials.

04.07.14.-José María Aznar, former Prime Minister of Spain and President of the FAES Foundation, launched today at the 2014 FAES Campus the A New Atlantic Community: Generating Growth, Human Development and Security in the Atlantic Hemisphere white paper, set in motion by the Atlantic Basin Initiative, chaired and launched by Aznar at the Centre for Transatlantic Relations of the Johns Hopkins University, of which he is a distinguished fellow. The paper calls for the redefinition of a new Atlantic community that includes South America, Central America and the Atlantic countries in Africa, based on the common values of democracy and freedom and that is well-positioned in the world.

José María Aznar, former Prime Minister of Spain and President of the FAES Foundation, launched today at the 2014 FAES Campus the A New Atlantic Community: Generating Growth, Human Development and Security in the Atlantic Hemisphere white paper, set in motion by the Atlantic Basin Initiative, chaired and launched by Aznar at the Centre for Transatlantic Relations of the Johns Hopkins University, of which he is a distinguished fellow. The paper calls for the redefinition of a new Atlantic community that includes South America, Central America and the Atlantic countries in Africa, based on the common values of democracy and freedom and that is well-positioned in the world.

América Latina necesita el apoyo de España, Reino Unido y el resto del mundo occidental a la hora de afrontar sus dos grandes retos: el fin de la pobreza y la lucha contra un crimen organizado que adquiere caras tan diferentes como la de los grupos de narcotraficantes en México, la delincuencia común en Venezuela, el terrorismo en Colombia, o la presencia de mafias y yihadismo en la triple frontera entre Brasil, Paraguay y Argentina.

El presidente Obama dedicó la semana pasada a Iberoamérica. Su Administración anunció el levantamiento de algunas medidas que suavizan, sin eliminarlo, el embargo a Cuba. Tanto el presidente como la secretaria de Estado reconocieron el fracaso de una política de cincuenta años: no hay libertad en Cuba ni prosperidad para el pueblo cubano. Obama visitó México, donde apoyó los esfuerzos del Gobierno del presidente Calderón en su lucha contra la violencia del narcotráfico. Y concluyó la semana participando en la Cumbre Interamericana de Puerto España (Trinidad y Tobago), donde fue él, y no Hugo Chávez, el verdadero protagonista de la reunión. El estilo amable, la frescura y la delicadeza de Obama han vuelto a cautivar a propios y extraños. Pero sigue sin conocerse un diseño global y coherente de su política exterior. Y, al igual que tras su gira europea, puede haber dudas sobre la efectividad de tanta actividad diplomática. Como él mismo dijo, “la prueba para todos nosotros no son sólo las palabras, sino también los hechos”. Una dura exigencia en momentos de crisis económica internacional y de serios desafíos para la libertad en América Latina.