How Spain is upheaving Europe's pecking order

"There is a well-established pecking order of prejudice in western Europe. The British look down on the French, the French look down on the Italians, the Italians look down on the Spanish, the Spanish look down on the Portuguese - and everybody fears and ridicules the Germans", notes Gideon Rachman. "But the Spanish have upset this xenophobic hierarchy. Spain is now richer, more fashionable and more dynamic than Italy. It boasts Europe's most lauded chef (Ferran Adrià), its trendiest film director (Pedro Almodóvar) and its richest football club (Real Madrid). Barcelona has become Europe's most talked about city. ... These cultural changes reflect changes in the real world. In 2006 Spain's per-capita GDP overtook that of Italy. The average Spaniard is now richer than the average Italian – an unimaginable idea when the country was emerging from Francoist isolation in the early 1980s. Spanish governance also looks like a model of staid predictability compared with the frenetic instability of Italy."

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