It’s no news to anyone that the construction industry in Spain is at a continued standstill in light of the current market, which is creeping behind in comparison to other slowly recovering European countries.

In October last year, when the brunt of the crisis hit home owners, the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero spoke directly to the banks asking them to “keep the financing tap” open to the Property and Construction companies as he believed they would continue to generate wealth and a high employment rate, thus helping the economy to recover at a swifter rate.

This did not completely go to plan and many are still looking to the Spanish government to bail this industry out.

In answer to this, last week Pedro Solbes, the Minister of Economics, addressed a conference in Vitoria explaining that it was not his belief that the Spanish government should come to its rescue.  The conference was held at the Caja Vital savings bank.

The Minister did add that “sensible ideas” to help alleviate some of the pressure caused by the crisis would be welcome but added that he found it “very difficult to accept” that the government should substitute construction and real estate companies “when things go badly”.

Solbes was also heard to have said that he believed one way to help end the crisis was for construction companies to aid in the building of ‘protected housing’; schemes similar to the United Kingdom’s council housing and county housing associations.  These schemes currently being in much higher demand than their more expensive counterparts.