When will we really emerge from the crisis, what will the Spanish economy look like when it recovers, will employment really grow in 2014 or will it be more a statistical question than a real one? Are we heading towards a world of greater social inequality?
These are some of the issues addressed by Jordi Sevilla, economist and Senior Councelor of the consultancy firm PwC and former Minister for Public Administration (2004-2007), in his speech at the Proa Observatory of the Communication celeb
The report was published on 17 December under the title Is this the end of the crisis?
A question that for Jordi Sevilla has a negative answer, albeit a nuanced one. "We have come out of the recession but not out of the crisis. At the end of 2014 there will be positive growth but we will not recover the GDP we had before the crisis until 2017", he said. In his view, domestic consumption will be the key variable for growth. "Allow me to put it this way, but it is the truth: we will grow if we are not austere", stressed Sevilla, who has always been known for his defence of Keynesian theses and, in this view, sees the slowdown in the adjustment of the public deficit as positive, although this has as a counterpart the exponential growth of public debt, which is close to 100% of GDP.
The Spain that Jordi Sevilla sees in 2014 is a Spain in which employment will be created, "but it will be 80 per cent precarious employment and I don't know if it will be real or statistical employment, caused by people no longer having any incentive to sign up at the unemployment offices". It will also be a Spain once again marked by a high volume of bankruptcies. "There will be four or five Fagor or Panrico-style cases. And not 
because they are bad companies, but because, as has happened this year in many companies, they have had serious debt and liquidity problems," he said.
The Spain that he perceives will maintain the burden of the real estate sector, where "the crisis is far from over, although it is true that one city or one area is not the same as another, and it is also true that the crisis is not the same as it is in the rest of the world. there are opportunities". Opportunities such as those that are attracting a multitude of foreign investors and so-called vulture funds. "They come because we are cheap and because there are no longer any doubts about the euro, but our problem is that GDP does not grow with this alone: we need more consumption", he emphasised. In this respect, Jordi Sevilla pointed out a relevant fact: "Half of families have no mortgage debts and are still in employment. Despite this, uncertainty has led them to tighten their belts. When these families feel more optimistic and increase their consumption, things will start to change". Of course, that is the upside of the coin. The flip side is the other half of the families, who "in some cases don't even have enough money to pay for electricity. It is a social inequality that is going to widen.
This is precisely one of the five trends that Jordi Sevilla believes will shape the world in the future, as he detailed in his speech. Firstly, the globalisation -The internationalisation of companies can no longer be reversed". Second, what he calls low cost quality -We are no longer competing on price alone, but on value for money". Thirdly, the need to learn to living without bank credit -Companies will have to find their feet in other markets, with other players and other demands". Fourth, the Green Growth or green growth - "it is a clear element of competition and has to be seen as such by the business world". And fifth, the social inequality -There will be less poverty in the world, but in the first world there will be more.
In this context, and when asked what the post-crisis Spain should be like, what sectors it should base its productive model on, Jordi Sevilla stressed his idea that "it is a mistake to pose this question in terms of sectors; I like to talk about vectors because what is important is not what you do, but how you do it", he said. And he gave the example of Inditex: "what it does, selling clothes, is nothing new; its great contribution has been its way of doing it". And for his own reflections, we leave here his recipes for building the Spain of the future: a commitment to true innovation, to internationalisation, for professionalisation, for the low cost of quality, being aware that this implies a reordering of the entire value chain of companies, leaving nothing behind.