Rajoy says Spain had no other option, it was between bad and worse

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy answered questions in Parliament on Wednesday (July 18), a week after he unveiled spending cuts and tax hikes worth 65 billion euros over the next two and a half years, a move he defended saying Spain had no other option and the only choice it had was between bad and worse if it wanted to curb its public deficit and overcome the financial crisis.

Rajoy was questioned by members of the opposition on measures that will not aid unemployment,  the highest in Europe,  and of destroying the welfare state.

"I think that by ignoring the unemployed and dependent people we will not get out of the crisis. I think that crushing the middle class and the workers with taxes, we will not get out of the crisis. And I think that by cutting savagely, if you allow the expression, harshly the salaries of public workers and public employment we will not get out of the crisis, Mr Rajoy," Alfedo Perez Rubalcaba, leader of the opposition Socialist Party said.

"We will not generate work, we will not grow on the contrary, we will not grow and we will not create work. What you will achieve is more injustice and more suffering, Mr Rajoy, thank you very much," he added.

Rajoy however argued that reducing the deficit was the only way out of the crisis and that there is no other choice but to take unpopular measures.

"The problem, Mr Perez Rubalcaba, and you and everyone in this house know, is that we cannot spend what we don't have because nobody will give it to us. You know there are public institutions in Spain that cannot finance themselves because we are spending 30 billion euros in debt interest and that is what doesn't allow us to carry out many policies that you and I would like to do," he said.

Rajoy said the choices available were bad, but said the alternative was something even worse. "This government has to decide between bad and something worse and that is what we are doing now. So, if we keep up with this policy, which is a common sense policy, Spain will overcome the crisis. There are already things that are going well, exports are doing well," he said.

The additional cuts announced by Rajoy's centre right government last Wednesday (July 11) in parliament have sparked daily protests by public workers and members of the 15M indignados, as well as by trade union members.

Spain's two biggest trade unions have called nation-wide protests for Thursday July 19.