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A deal on European financing for ailing Spanish banks will impose no conditions on the wider Spanish economy, Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said Saturday.
“There are no conditions of any kind on economic reforms outside of the financial sector,” he told a news conference after an emergency conference call with fellow eurozone ministers.
“There are only conditions for the banks. That is all. It is an injection of capital which they will have to pay back. There are no additional conditions for Spanish society,” the minister said.
“This is not a bailout,” de Guindos stressed.
Spain worked hard to avoid the political humiliation of a bailout for its public finances like those drawn up for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, which came with demands for austerity measures and economic reforms.
Madrid pushed for any EU funding to be targeted directly at distressed banks that were smothered by a pile of bad loans following the collapse of a real-estate bubble in 2008.