Julio Iglesias, who made a fortune with hit songs such as “Begin the Beguine” and “Poor Devils”, says his fellow Spaniards are now paying the price after frittering away the good times.
“Perhaps we should have made fewer roads and devoted more money to health and education,” the 68-year-old said in an interview with leading daily El Pais published Thursday.
“In times of prosperity we were not smart enough to put the milk in a cool place,” the singer said.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government has enacted spending cuts and tax increases to claw back 102 billion euros by 2014 and slash the public deficit.
“Spain does not deserve what it is going through today,” Iglesias sympathised.
But the singer said he believed Spain’s leader is keeping his cool in the economic storm.
“Rajoy is a stoic, capable of sleeping on a bed of stone,” he said. “He is a calm person in a hurried time. Maybe his attitude is wise, it’s too early to say.”
Julio Iglesias says Spaniards paying now for bad investments
