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The new focus of concern in the already complex global economic scenario is the health of public finances. In the case of Spain, the two key levers in order for public debt to continue to fall are the general government deficit and economic growth.

A sense of unstable balance will dominate the performance of the economy throughout 2024 – something which we will no doubt have to get used to and which will demand considerable flexibility among economic agents when it comes to making decisions. Such are the times in which we live.

2025 will be a year in search of a new normal, threatened by the division between economic blocs. The best outcome would be to regain multilateral cooperation in order to tackle the new challenges and spread the risks together. 

With disinflation on track and some signs of a slowdown in economic activity and a cooling of the labour market, monetary policy is shifting gears and starting to dial back the monetary tightening of the past years: going from restrictive to neutral. The ECB and the Fed, along with other major central banks, have initiated this easing process with interest rate cuts, and they are expected to continue doing so in 2025. From there, we will seek to clarify the factors that will guide this new phase of monetary policy.

Stable economic outlook but with increasing risks: geopolitical instability, uncertainty and a lack of confidence.

Although it is nothing new, it is still important to emphasise it: the latest available indicators for the Spanish economy have once again beaten expectations. Despite the continued weakness of Europe and the high global uncertainty, Spain’s economy continues to stand out on the international stage.

2025 should be the year of monetary policy untightening, with the ECB and the Fed lowering their interest rates to neutral levels (around 2% and 3%, respectively). These rate cuts will be accompanied by another, less visible normalisation: the reduction of their balance sheets, which have grown exponentially in the last 15 years.

Monetary policy has reacted quickly and decisively to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, having successfully played the role of «fire-fighter», the ECB will have to remain highly active to support the revival of the economy.

After the experience of recent years, we know how political risk can alter the behaviour of key hypotheses in economic forecasting scenarios.

The Spanish economy continues to have the highest structural unemployment rate in the European Union, despite having managed to reduce it substantially in recent years. To curb it, improvements are needed on three fronts: greater supply and demand for employment and better matching between the two.

Having launched the most intense monetary tightening cycle of recent decades, it appears that the central banks are on track to solve the unexpected upturn in inflation which the international economy has had to cope with since the first half of 2021.

The pace of growth of the Spanish economy has slowed, as evidenced by the lower GDP growth rate recorded in Q3. The main reason for this is the weakness of the external environment: the euro area has registered a slight decline in economic activity and its three main economies are stagnant. In contrast, the statistics for household consumption in Spain, one of the pillars of the economy, remain strong.

The international economy showed remarkable resilience in 2024 and the available data suggest that world GDP may have grown slightly above 3%. The tailwinds that supported economic activity will likely continue to blow in 2025, albeit with less strength and in the face of significant challenges.

The beginning of a new economic chapter is marked by the sensation that we may be approaching a turning point in the behaviour of the economy.