Spanish Intelligence Reportedly Probing 'Attacks' on Economy

[FarCenter]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,677904,00.html

With Spain suffering the highest unemployment in the European Union and its economy expected to remain in recession for a least another year, things are looking bleak for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Now it seems the government in Madrid has found a convenient scapegoat for its travails: the Anglo-Saxon media allied with nefarious speculators looking to undermine the euro.

On Sunday the center-left El Pais newspaper reported that the Spanish intelligence agency was looking into "speculative attacks" on Spain following the Greek debt crisis. Citing unnamed sources, El Pais said the National Intelligence Center (CNI) was investigating "whether investors' attacks and the aggressiveness of some Anglo-Saxon media are driven by market forces and challenges facing the Spanish economy, or whether there is something more behind this campaign."

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Infrastructure Minister Jose Blanco raised eyebrows last week when he alluded to shadowy forces ganging up on the country. "Spain is the victim of an international conspiracy to destroy the country's economic status, and then, the euro," he said. "Nothing that is happening, including the apocalyptical editorials in foreign media, is just chance."

British business daily The Financial Times and the market-friendly weekly The Economist, have been particularly critical of Zapatero's handling of the economy. On Friday The Economist rejected the accusations of an Anglo-Saxon plot as "piffle," writing "the best retort is: grow up."

Yet, if the El Pais report is correct, it would seem the Spanish government is taking the matter very seriously indeed. Officials at the Spanish Defense Ministry and the CNI have, however, neither confirmed not denied the report so far.