Brussels offers Spain two more years to reduce deficit to 3%

El País

Spain closed 2012 with the biggest shortfall in deficit reduction targets in Europe, with the public deficit reaching 10.6 per cent of GDP – including European aid to Spanish banks. According to European and government sources, Spain may be given two more years, until 2016, to cut the deficit to 3 per cent of GDP.

El País, in its leader article, says "those two years will favour growth and alleviate regional tensions" but warns that new deficit goals will have to be "obeyed scrupulously."

Minister of Economy Luis de Guindos is warning that GDP will fall twice or three times as much as expected in 2013, by 1.5 per cent instead of 0.5 per cent.

Read this article in Spanish.

Reprinted with permission of Presseurop.