Since the start of the year, the Spanish economy has felt like a huge party on the Titanic, cruising heedlessly onto an iceberg of corporate debt.

The danger signs were there for all to see: a real estate bubble; corporate borrowing up 37 per cent in a year; frenzied merger snf acquisition activity, and last but not least a current account deficit that has ballooned to become the second largest in the world in absolute terms after the US.