Brussels raises 2015 growth forecast for Spain

Interesting article I read yesterday:

Brussels has raised its forecast for Spanish economic growth in 2015 to 2.3%, a significant increase from its previous prediction.

After reducing Spanish growth prospects from 2.1% to 1.7% three months ago, the European Commission is now optimistic enough to have applied the biggest upward revision in the entire eurozone to Spain.

After several years of doom and gloom, Brussels is now holding Spain up as a role model for others to follow.
After three years of recession, the Spanish economy began to grow in 2014 and appears to be consolidating on the back of an improved labor market, better financial conditions, increased confidence and falling oil prices, according to the EC report, which was presented on Thursday.

This radical turnaround vindicates Spain’s Popular Party government, which had openly criticized Brussels’ pessimistic views in November. Now, the EC is even more optimistic than the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which recently forecast 2% growth for Spain in 2015.

The revised figures are the result of increased domestic demand fueled by expectations of an incipient recovery and timid job creation, coupled with better financing conditions and falling oil prices. These are making up for lower exports.

Greater output, however, will not translate into similar progress for the Spanish labor market, where the unemployment rate is expected to remain above 20% until at least late next year.

[source el pais]

But do the EU  Have a good record of getting predictions correct? 

I don't see the relevance of a growth prediction when unemployment figures are so high, particularly those of the young which stand at over 50%. Whenever I am impressed with a young person's efforts in the Spanish service sector, more often than not they come from an Eastern European country, a bearing perhaps.

Overall unemployment figures in Spain are some 25%, I don't know the breakdown but wager that the construction sector is the highest, with the financial services sector coming a close second. The property boom of 2007 artificially predicted unachievable growth rates, a saying of my late grandfather comes to mind re the 2015 forecast, this being:-

Half of three quarters of nowt, is still b***** all