Fernando PomboFor a number of years Spain has been either at or near the top of the table of European Union (EU) economies, outperforming many of its more
heralded neighbours.

As the world’s eighth-largest economy and the fifth largest in the EU, during the second half of the 1990s it enjoyed average economic growth of 4% per year. And, despite a cooling of the economy, growth of more than 2% in 2002 still compared well with the 1% average elsewhere in the Eurozone.