SPAIN´S business community has launched a media campaign urging Spaniards, struggling with massive unemployment and the deepest recession in half a century, to focus on the positive and remain cheerful.
The initiative, which revolves around the website estosololoarreglamosentretodos.org - we can only fix this together - aims to unite Spaniards by encouraging initiative, pooling ideas and lists examples of hope in the face of adversity.
The site has a manifesto and the backing of celebrities such as top chef Ferran Adria and basketball ace Pau Gasol. The campaign marks the first time Spanish business has pulled together to lift the national mood which has slumped, alongside the economy, with almost half of under-25s out of work, house prices sliding and little chance of political agreement on reforms. We've spent too much time hearing how bad everything is everywhere ... But, the crisis is not just out there, it is also in our heads, the website says. We have reasons to be cheerful. On this website, you will find many of them. Most economists expect only limited growth after Spain emerges from recession and the government says unemployment, which rose to 18.3 percent in the fourth quarter, will not return to pre-crisis levels until 2015 at the earliest.