The same old Rajoy

It was the new prime minister himself, Mariano Rajoy, who had encouraged expectation that his investiture speech might unveil the main guidelines for the new legislature. Monday's speech featured a long list of tasks (raise payments for the 8.7 million pensioners; cut taxes for businessmen and savers; bring back the tax deduction for housing purchases; suppression of certain lengthy festivals), some of them far from negligible, which even received promises of support from the Socialists and other groups.

But as a whole, the investiture speech did not live up to the expectations he himself had raised, or seem adequate to the anxious situation of the country, because in essential matters his plan was as imprecise as the rhetoric of his electoral speeches. The essential matter is to know precisely at what speed and how his program is to be carried out, that is, how the adjustment that Spain urgently needs is going to be distributed.

Rajoy spoke of the economy, growth and employment. He rightly refrained from using the grave situation as an excuse for the stumbling blocks he is likely to face, but he presented no credible plan for dealing with them. Most of the moves he mentioned are to be postponed until the first quarter of next year, which seems to bely the urgency he demanded when in opposition. But he was right in this demand: rapid action is essential.

To the already-foreseen cutback of 16.5 billion euros in 2012 (if the year is closed with a deficit of six percent, which will not be the case) we must add the fiscal employment-stimulus measures he announced, in which case his economic plans still fail to answer the main question asked in his campaign: in which concrete areas does he plan to make cutbacks, to obtain that figure that seems to exceed the real possibilities of the Spanish economy? To promise that, excepting pensions, all other budget headings will be subject to revision, only serves to avoid saying which ones.

To bring back the tax deduction for housing purchase shows clearly that Rajoy's team still considers acceptable the model of growth based on housing construction, from which most of the problems now facing the Spanish economy proceed.

Rajoy gave no details on the structure of his government. All that is known is that it will feature an Agriculture Ministry conceived to defend the interests of Spain in Brussels, in line with a narrow conception of European unity. The re-nationalizing slant of his rhetoric concerning the Union was obvious, though here too he was vague, resorting to old standbys such as the priority of Latin America and the use of the Spanish language.

Overall, Rajoy did his best to stick to the rhetoric he used in his campaign, hoping not to alienate any sector of opinion by means of saying nothing specific about what he plans to do. This is a risky line for the Popular Party to take, because sooner or later it will have to govern. But it may also be risky for the country as a whole, if vagueness eventually translates into inaction.