The 2008–2013 Spanish financial crisis began as part of the world Late-2000s financial crisis and continued as part of the European sovereign debt crisis, which has affected primarily the southern European states and Ireland. In Spain, the crisis was generated by long-term loans (commonly issued for 40 years), the building market crash, which included the bankruptcy of major companies, and a particularly severe increase in unemployment, which rose to 24.4% by March 2012.
Spain continued the path of economic growth when the ruling party changed in 2004, keeping robust GDP growth during the first term of prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, even though some fundamental problems in the Spanish economy were already evident. Among these, according to the Financial Times, there was Spain's huge trade deficit (which reached a staggering 10% of the country's GDP by the summer of 2008), the "loss of competitiveness against its main trading partners" and, also, as a part of the latter, an inflation rate which had been traditionally higher than those of its European partners, back then especially affected by house price increases of 150% from 1998 and a growing family indebtedness (115%) chiefly related to the Spanish Real Estate boom and rocketing oil prices.
