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By Humphrey Carter

SPAIN'S long term future is a troubled one and the country is going to have to over come a host of hurdles in order to emerge from this recession.
Spain, pressed by the European Commission, is drawing up reforms to tackle underfunding in its pension system that forced the government to dip into the social security reserve fund last year and means that millions of Spaniards, well those lucky enough to be in work, are looking at a lower pension, if they get one at all.

And, more than 3 million workers have lost their jobs since the onset of the recession and have therefore stopped paying into the pensions system meaning there is going to be even less money to go round.

And now, people are leaving. More than half a million foreign workers - lured to Spain during the boom years - have left since the start of 2010, while young Spaniards are moving abroad in droves in search of jobs.

Spain is also paying the price of a low fertility rate for the past 25 years - a trend compounded by the recession - which is reducing the number of entrants to the workforce.

The risk is that a low fertility rate, high emigration and a rapidly ageing labour force will form a vicious economic circle which Spain is going to find very hard to get out of.

And even if it does, what kind of situation is Spain going to find itself in?