| Café shots | WILLIAMS: It's a picture perfect. A relaxed nation basking in the winter sun, enjoying the fruits of an economy that had been doing well. But the party is well and truly over. The economy, as limp as the flag. | 00:00 |
| Wert. Super: | WERT: Their population is not ready and nobody's alerting the population they have to be ready. WILLIAMS: So either way, they're in for a shock WERT: To put it blunt. WILLIAMS: They are in for a shock. WERT: They are in for a shock, yeah. | 00:15 |
| Street shots | WILLIAMS: What for years has been a real estate boom has turned into a housing bust, taking the rest of Spain with it. And it looks something like this: | 00:25 |
| Valdeluz | Music | 00:33 |
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| WILLIAMS: Welcome to Valdeluz, a city of 30,000, an hour's drive from Madrid. "Build it, and they will come," except they didn't. | 00:38 |
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| Just 400 people actually call this home. Most of what has been built lies empty. The rest is a work not in progress at all, kilometre after kilometre of well designed, credit crunch nothingness. | 00:46 |
| Maria Ucros and Arturo Londono on apartment balcony | When Maria Ucros and Arturo Londono moved in, they were looking for the quiet life, but didn't expect it to be this quiet, not that they mind. | 01:00 |
| Around Valdeluz | Instead of playgrounds full of children and homes stretching to the horizon, their view is of a developer’s dream on hold, if not shattered. | 01:10 |
| Maria. Super: | MARIA: We believe in the project. We don't think that this is going to end here. WILLIAMS: But it's going to take a while. MARIA: Oh yes, we know that. WILLIAMS: How long do you think you're going to have to wait to see everything finished now? | 01:19 |
| Pan left to Arturo. Super: | ARTURO: Ah, the situation in Spain is so difficult and in the whole world. I believe that maybe in two years it starts again, to develop, but not so fast. | 01:35 |
| Valdeluz streets | WILLIAMS: When they take a walk through what the Spanish call a ghost city, they pass more for sale signs than people. Investors have vanished, housing overbuilt and under-loved. | 01:51 |
| Williams to camera | While all of this is a rather extreme example, there are similar stories throughout Spain. In fact, it's estimated there are around one million homes lying idle. And in the construction industry, they say about half a million people have lost their jobs. That's a lot of homes that need filling, and a lot of jobs that need finding. | 02:03 |
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| With unemployment already nearly 14 per cent and tipped to hit 19, construction foreman Antonio Moyano isn't optimistic his seven month search for a job will end soon. | 02:23 |
| Antonio. Super: | ANTONIO [translated]: ‘There's been a big effect on spending power,' he tells me. 'I'm paying a mortgage, thank God I'm receiving unemployment benefits which is a big help, but a lot of people aren't getting it. There are a lot much immigrants, for example, that don't have those benefits. And this will create a chain reaction of crime and robberies.' | 02:33 |
| Unemployed men on street in Madrid | WILLIAMS: On certain streets in Madrid it's not hard to find the unemployed South Americans, usually construction workers. In demand during the housing boom, now, like Pedro Jimenez, thinking of going home to the Dominican Republic. | 02:54 |
| Pedro | PEDRO [translated]: Of course I'd go,' he tells me, 'but even after 25 years here I don't have the money for the airfare. If I had the money I would leave, even though it would be a humble homecoming.' | 03:08 |
| Eddy | EDDY [translated]: Eddy Antonio Vilar says, 'The whole world is affected. Even so, Spaniards are taking advantage of immigrants, cutting wages or even refusing to pay them at all.' | 03:21 |
| Nigerian woman sweeping street | WILLIAMS: Migrants who still have a job fear they may be next. This Nigerian woman told me lots of her friend have lost theirs already, and she's praying she's not next on the list. | 03:33 |
| Strawberry picking | It's strawberry season in the Spanish hot houses. This is where many of the Eastern European immigrants found work in an industry shunned by Spaniards, until now. For the first time in years some of the pickers are home grown, like bricklayer Andreas, who used to make twice what he earns here. | 03:45 |
| Andreas. Super: | ANDREAS [translated]: This is the first time in five years that I've worked on the land, because before there was so much demand for bricklayers and painters. But it's all collapsed. Construction has completely ground to a halt. | 04:02 |
| Strawberry pickers | WILLIAMS: As the legal immigrants get shunted down the line, the illegals are pushed even further down a growing queue. | 04:14 |
| Immigrants arriving by boat | For years desperate people risked death, making the dangerous crossing from Morocco to southern Spain in flimsy boats, some didn't survive. | 04:21 |
| Moroccan men in camp | Now those without papers are pushed to the fringes and shunned by employers. | 04:30 |
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| MOROCCAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT: They say 'Tiene papeles?' WILLIAMS: Do you have your papers? MOROCCAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT: Yeah, do you have papers? I say 'Tio, no tengo papeles,' I don't have papers, or I don't get papers, no. And that – PHILIP WILLIAMS: That's it? MOROCCAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT: That's the problem, you know. That's it. And that's the end. You know, they never want to talk to you again. | 04:36 |
| Buskers on Madrid street | WILLIAMS: Even in the smart streets of Madrid there are clear signs all is not well. With unemployment soaring and economic indicators negative, the Government has reached for the credit card and borrowed billions for its stimulus package. | 04:50 |
| Sale sign | OCANA: This is not a Spanish problem, this is a global problem. | 05:05 |
| Ocana. Super: | We need the financial sector to work again fast. There is no question about that. But nothing special will happen in Spain, it's just the same for all of us. | 05:11 |
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| WILLIAMS: The Opposition Spanish Popular Party says the Prime Minister is spending the nation not out of but further into deeper crisis. | 05:22 |
| Nadal. Super | NADAL: For the depth, I could say it's quite responsible because this external deficit, this need to get savings from the outside, to finance our economy for so long and a huge amount, because Spain has had a 10 per cent GDP deficit which only Iceland was the country with more deficit than us, and we know what has happened with Iceland. And that's why we're asking the Government not to spend more. Other countries can afford, but we cannot afford that. | 05:30 |
| Wert. Super: | WERT: We have to rebuild ourselves, and to rebuild ourselves we have to make, we have to work hard and we have to make sacrifices, and we have to, I mean – WILLIAMS: When you say sacrifice, do you mean, say, lower wages? WERT: Of course. Of course, I mean, this is basic economic knowledge. | 05:57 |
| Building site | PHILIP WILLIAMS: There is a common thread amongst those European countries hit hardest by the crisis. Spain, Ireland and Britain all invested heavily in real estate. And now everyone pays. | 06:17 |
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| Reporter: Philip Williams | 06:30 |