NO ES SÓLO el Financial Times quien arrea a Zapatero: al otro lado del Atlántico, el New York Times afirma que la economía española está "al borde" (del precipicio, se entiende):

Spanish politics, frankly, does not currently seem up to the intensity of action that the country’s economic and financial circumstances would suggest — and appears barely conscious of the implications for the world’s view of Europe if Spain were to fall to its knees.

The opposition Popular Party, which the polls indicate would run up to seven points ahead of the Socialists if national elections scheduled for 2012 were held now, gives the impression of not wanting to do anything — proposing a cutback in social security levels, for instance — that might spook a single prospective voter.

Mr. Zapatero, in turn, it is said, just might relish some kind of eventual E.U. involvement, guidance or assistance in enacting the tough austerity measures his constituency, notably the trade unions, would otherwise resist. In the Spanish context, where the electorate holds the E.U. in ongoing reverence, accepting what could be euphemized as a European austerity checklist could be a politically manageable way out for the prime minister.

But the game may be moving quickly outside of Spain’s grip. On Friday, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, far from endorsing the credibility of the government’s pledge to the E.U. to reduce its deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product by 2013, said it thought it was likely to remain above 5 percent.

It said it expected “much weaker economic performance” than the government expects, with unemployment remaining above 15 percent over the period. The agency also renewed its negative outlook on Spain’s sovereign ratings “in the absence of more aggressive and tangible actions by the authorities.”

As if in response, Ms. Salgado, the finance minister, asserted that the country, which remains in recession, would grow in every quarter this year.
And — Let the good times roll! — sounding like someone who thought they had assurances that Spain was Too Big to Fail, she insisted that members of the euro zone “will not stand idle if one of the member countries is in trouble.”

That was late Friday. On Monday, Mr. Zapatero doubled up on Ms. Salgado’s statement of confidence, telling the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an interview, “You can have absolute confidence in us. Our plan to reduce the deficit will be fulfilled.”

Then, almost in the next sentence, he added a new turn to the government’s pattern of confusion, and cut the legs off the finance minister’s timetable for Spain’s emergence from recession by as much as half.

“I am convinced,” Mr. Zapatero said, “that our economy will be growing again by the fourth quarter, at the latest.”