Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos will meet with the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, next week to agree the deficit margins Spain must achieve to fulfill EU requirements.
De Guindos will request to meet the 3 per cent deficit goal by 2015 instead of 2014, with a 6 per cent deficit in 2013 and 4.5 per cent in 2014.
Given the country’s current situation of “internal weakness”, threatened consequences on the Spanish economy of the Cypriot haircut and new data revealing a likely 1 per cent drop in GDP in 2013, the newspaper supports de Guindos’s new deficit targets.