Spain: a modern European economy

Perhaps more than any other European country, Spain has undergone a remarkable transformation in the post-war period.

To the surprise of many, it has succeeded in making the leap from a predominantly agricultural and politically repressed country, to a modern European democracy with a diversified economy containing important manufacturing and service sectors.

Yet, despite the fact that at the beginning of the twenty-first century Spain is the world's eighth largest economy, old stereotypes that see the Iberian nation as an inflexible, unchanging society, persist.