[youngtaff]

I think there are plenty of people in Ireland, Portugal and Spain who would argue that the 'bitter EU medicine' worked for them.

Spain has an unemployment rate of 23% for starters.

We should also take a look at Iceland, where going a different route to the EU medicine worked well for them.

[pfortuny]

That is so true... Few people "working well" in Spain. But TAXES.

[ptaipale]

Taxes are not particularly high in Spain. They are below OECD average, not to mention below EU or Eurozone average.

http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=REV

In 2013, Spain's tax revenue was 32.6 % of GDP. Compare that to Germany 36.7 %, Netherlands 36.3 % and Finland 44.0 %. Also consider that these as proportion of tax revenue to official GDP, and it's pretty safe to assume that Spain has more in grey economy (not in official statistics) than northern Euro countries.

[holoto]

Spains unemployment rate was 24% in 1994. It was 21% in 1985. Or 18% in 1998. Unemployment in Spain is traditionally 10% above northern countries or the US. So yes unemployment is high (we had a crisis and had a recession!) but not as high as you make it look without context.

[appleflaxen]

Does your first sentence have a typo? It seems to be in tension with your second.

[youngtaff]

Yes, it could do with a with as in "would argue with that"