Financial Times: "Una España torpe guiará Europa"

El editorial no es una crítica directa al país sino a su presidente
El diario tilda de "extraordinariamente anodino" el programa de trabajo de la presidencia española

LAEDICION.NET.-REDACCION.-"Extremadamente anodino". Así es como la publicación británica Financial Times -"A stumbling Spain must guide Europe"- describe el programa de trabajo propuesto por el presidente Zapatero, para la presidencia española de la UE, en un editorial en el que cuestiona la capacidad del actual ocupante de La Moncloa para guiar Europa durante los próximos seis meses.
El editorial empieza recordando el "desafortunado comienzo" de la presidencia española.
Un hacker traspasó los sistemas de seguridad de la página web oficial y colgó una imagen de Mr. Bean, el personaje que interpreta el actor británico Rowan Atkinson, ataque que fue negado por el Gobierno español y que atribuyó a un simple fotomontaje.
Financial Times apunta que la elección del hacker no fue casual, ya que Mr. Bean es conocido por sus torpezas y errores.
"Y España parece propensa a los accidentes en estos momentos".
Según Financial Times, España, con una situación económica "duramente golpeada por la recesión global" y con un porcentaje de "desempleo cercano al 20%", no es quizás la mejor guía para Europa.
No es una crítica directa a España como país, ya que el editorial valora las presidencias de turno con Felipe González y José María Aznar, sino contra Zapatero, a quien considera distraído con los asuntos domésticos.
El principal equívoco de Zapatero es, según la publicación británica, centrar la presidencia de la UE en la aplicación del Tratado de Lisboa, puesto que ya ha entrado en vigor, en lugar de resolver la crisis económica.
"El programa que Zapatero ha propuesto es extremadamente anodino, incluso para los poco exigentes estándares de la mayoría de las presidencias europeas".
Financial Times se lamenta de que España cometerá el típico error de centrar los esfuerzos en el funcionamiento de las instituciones en lugar de en los problemas reales de los ciudadanos.
EL EDITORIAL DEL FINANCIAL TIMES
A stumbling Spain must guide Europe
By any standards, it was an unfortunate beginning. Spain's six-month presidency of the European Union, which got underway this week, appears to have been subject to an attack by computer-hackers.
On its first day, web-surfers navigating to the special presidency website found themselves staring at photos of Mr Bean, the hapless British comedy character who (some claim), bears a resemblance to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister.
Mr Bean is famous for his stumbles and mishaps - and Spain is also looking accident-prone at the moment. On the previous occasions that Spain has assumed the presidency of the EU, the country's mood was very different.
Both the González and Aznar governments were presiding over a booming economy that infused the whole nation with a certain swagger. But Spain has been hit very hard by the global recession. Unemployment is close to 20 per cent and the all-important construction sector is on its back.
Perhaps Mr Zapatero is being distracted by his domestic travails, because the work programme that he has proposed for the Spanish presidency is remarkably anodyne, even by the undemanding standards of most European Union presidencies.
The now unhacked website claims that the EU's new Lisbon treaty will be the "focus of the Spanish presidency". Since the treaty has just come into force - and puts into place a complex structure that combines the rotating presidency Spain has just assumed with a new permanent presidency - it is understandable that the Spanish see getting this new system to work as a priority.
All the same, if the Spanish presidency genuinely does concentrate on making the Lisbon treaty work, it would be making a mistake that is all too typical of the European Union: concentrating on the fine-tuning of institutional arrangements, at the expense of dealing with real-world problems that trouble European citizens.
Of these problems, by far and away the most important is the economic crisis. Growth is still feeble across Europe - and Spain is no exception. During the Spanish presidency, European governments will have to try to agree whether - and how fast - to withdraw the fiscal stimuli that were put in place last year.
The next six months could also see a full-blown fiscal crisis in Greece or Latvia. Dealing with these challenges, without any unfortunate Bean-like mishaps, will be Mr Zapatero's biggest challenge over the next six months.