Extreme privacy and quiet. This sense has dominated the final stages of labor reforms that the Spanish government launched today. As late as yesterday, the general directors did not know how the reforms would turn out, and therefore they were still meeting late in the afternoon at the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. During this meeting Labor Minister Fátima Báez presented the Plan for the Economy and Competition (Economía y Competividad in Spanish), which ultimately was approved by consensus.
Yesterday, Luis de Guindos said that labor reforms are "extremely aggressive." He was in Brussels during yesterday's meeting, so European Commission vice president Olli Rehn acted as his spokesperson. Immediately after the plan was approved, De Guindos spoke critically of how the plan lowered the costs of layoffs.
If anything was clear from the start about the labor reforms, it was that if indeed they were attempting to increase flexibility within the Spanish labor market, they were not able to do away with the pernicious duality affecting the market. Duality is responsible for the savage 23% unemployment rate and vast differences in workers? rights that separates full-time and temporary workers, which is to the detriment of temporary workers who are being especially hurt by the crisis.