D. PRESIDENT. — The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions: He has not yet announced anything, but we know what it brings: in line with budgetary austerity, Rajoy is going to meet one after the other the criteria and measures that the European Central Bank and Germany have recommended, what the ‘markets’ say. The same is true of PSOE and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In other words, what European social democracy has done in Greece, Portugal or other countries. “Because there is no other way out of the economic crisis, to reduce public spending in order to be able to pay the debt and that the markets do not condemn us,” the neoliberal doctrine says.

But why should public spending be reduced when Spanish public debt is among the lowest in the European Union? Spanish public debt accounts for 60.1% of GDP, while French debt accounts for 82%, German for 83% and Italian for 119%. Why do the cuts that affect the lives of citizens, when the increase in public debt comes only from the reduction in revenue by the increase in expenditure?

The answer lies in Spanish private debt, which is one of the highest in Europe. The high level of indebtedness creates problems for anyone, but even more so if the economic crisis affects him. In addition, however, the situation worsens if, in the face of the financial markets, the Spanish Government withdraws the guarantee that these debts will be paid, in order to prevent the condemnation of these financial markets. Of course, it does not succeed.

The reader will have read many times how indebted Spanish families are, and so it is. But that's just a part of private debt, not the biggest one. This is the distribution of Spanish debt (EUR 4.25 million): EUR 700,000 million public; that of families slightly less than one trillion; that of companies 1.3 trillion; and that of banks 1.35 trillion at most.

So if a family has problems and loses its home, that is a big problem – it is said – but that family was not responsible enough in its time and now has to suffer – it is added – consequences. The Spanish Government is not going to get into that if the law is not enforced and expelling the family from casa.Con the banks

are quite the opposite, they have a much higher debt than the families in Spain, but the government is going to put a fund of $100 billion to pay the debts of the boxes and put them in healthy conditions. But even more serious, given that much of this debt is contracted with foreign banks, mainly French, German and American banks, the government wants to transfer to them that the Spanish banks and banks are going to cover their payment and that the government itself is a guarantee of this. Hence the problem of large budget cuts, not of public debt, but of private debt and, above all, of large companies and banks.

After all, the neoliberal doctrine explains that indebted citizens cannot be rescued directly, that this rescue will come from the growth of the economy, the creation of jobs ... However, rescuing banks is essential, because their loans are like blood for the economy, and if this happens, the economy would sink.

There is no solution in this scheme: the deregulation of the last three decades has done what the financial world almost wants, which caused the financial crisis of 2007. Because they are bubbles that are created, that a few are enriched in an extraordinary way and that do not respond to economic reality, when they erupt, they cause a great crisis. That is why, after the 2007 crisis, governments said it was necessary to regulate the financial world. But, in the end, nothing has been done and the “markets” are still sending out, and also, how.

Is there not, therefore, an alternative to what is happening in the Rajoy office? Yes, provided that it puts the public and not the financial markets at the centre of the solution. There will be that if the citizens, everyone as a whole and above all as a whole, look for them. The first step is to say no. Then, little by little, take other steps, as is being done with taxes in the Council of Gipuzkoa, for example.