After Greek Debt Swap Eurogroup turns to Spain

The expected sign off from the Euro zone finance ministers will be announced on Wednesday, but already their attention has been more focused in Spain as its set to miss its deficit targets. Ongoing austerity measures in Spain have proven not to be enough to reduce the deficit and various Finance Ministers have commented on stricter plans needed.

Spain’s newly elected center-right government has already put in place a plan to reduce spending on health and education. The proposed cuts are expected to draw the same level of protests that those in Athens earlier this year. The main goal of the social services cuts is to save at least 30 billion euros.

The largest cuts will be to infrastructure and other investments (40 percent reduction), central government ministries (12 percent reduction), layoff and salary cuts at public companies (30 percent reduction)

fxlabs heatmap

Spain is the first country to break the Euro zone rules on national budget policies and an economy far larger than Greece. The jury is still out on the ECB and their handling of the Greece bailout, but what is clear is that harsher austerity measures and bigger bailout funds will be needed if Spain is to avoid

Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.

Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza