EU sets Spanish bank aid
Eurozone ministers have agreed to grant Spain an extra year until 2014 to reach its deficit reduction targets in exchange for further budget savings and set the parameters of an aid package for Madrid’s ailing banks.
The decisions were aimed at preventing the currency area’s fourth largest economy, mired in a worsening recession, from needing a full state bailout which would stretch the limits of Europe’s rescue fund and plunge it deeper into a debt crisis.
“The Eurogroup supports the recently adopted Commission recommendation to extend the deadline for the correction of the excessive deficit in Spain by one year to 2014,” ministers said in a statement.
No final figure was agreed for aid to ailing Spanish lenders, weighed down by bad debts due to a housing crash and recession, but the EU has set a maximum of 100 billion euros (£79.26bn) and some 30 billion euros would be available by the end of July if there was an urgent need.