Spain

Spain's government said 16 of the country's 17 regions are on track to meet this year's budget targets, a key part of its efforts to slash a towering budget deficit and ward off an international bailout, The Wall Street Journal reported. Budget Minister Cristóbal Montoro on Thursday hailed the approval of the regional spending plans, which have implemented measures equal to €18 billion ($22.9 billion) of spending cuts and increased tax revenue.

Spain denied there was a deposit flight from troubled lender Bankia SA Thursday as shares in the partially nationalised bank plunged by as much as 30 per cent, the Irish Times reported. "It's not true that there is an exit of deposits at this moment from Bankia," economy secretary Fernando Jimenez Latorre, who reports to the economy minister, told a news conference. The government on May 9th took over Bankia, the country's fourth-largest lender, in an attempt to dispel concerns over the bank's ability to deal with losses related to the 2008 property crash.

Spain's clean-up plan for its troubled banks lacks some of the key ingredients that helped other governments restore faith in their financial sectors, restructuring experts said, pointing to a potential need for heavier state intervention, Reuters reported. Madrid told lenders on Friday to put aside even more funds against potential losses from dubious property loans, but limited its role in the rescue to providing high-interest financing for the weakest banks.

Spain will be offered more time to hit the budget deficit targets it agreed with the EU but only if Madrid meets new conditions, including an independent audit of the restructuring plan for its troubled banks, the Financial Times reported. The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, has insisted on the extra conditions – which include ensuring more fiscal control over Spain’s profligate regional governments – before allowing Madrid to delay its 2013 deficit target by a year.

Spain's government will effectively nationalize the nation's fourth largest bank to shore up the hurting banking sector and try to convince investors the country doesn't need a bailout like those taken by Greece, Ireland and Portugal, the Economy Ministry said Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. Under the deal, €4.5 billion ($5.9 billion) in funding that Bankia SA received from Spain in 2010 and 2011 will be converted into shares of the institution's parent company, the ministry said in a statement.

Shares in Spain's fourth-biggest listed bank, Bankia, fell sharply Tuesday after the government said it would inject public money in the lender this week to clean up huge bad loans, Agence France-Presse reported. On Monday shares in Bankia, which has the industry's largest exposure to the property market at 37.5 billion euros ($49 billion), had lost 3.26 percent. An economy ministry official told AFP Monday that the government was "finalising a plan to clean up the bank", adding that the scheme would use public money and was likely to be announced by Friday.

Spain is planning a state bail-out of Bankia, the country’s third biggest bank by assets, in a move likely to involve the injection of billions of euros of public money into the troubled lender, the Financial Times reported. In an abrupt reversal of policy, the Spanish government, which had previously insisted that no additional state money would be needed to clean up the country’s banking sector, confirmed that an intervention was being prepared.

Marta Fernández should have been celebrating. After looking for work for months, she found a position in a media company in Madrid. But her new job, working full time for €300 a month, will barely cover her rent. She is one of the luckier Spaniards aged 25 and under, of whom more than half are languishing outside of work or education as the country suffers one of the highest levels of youth unemployment in the EU, the Financial Times reported. The abrupt end of Spain’s construction boom left thousands of young labourers without work.

Spanish oil heavyweight Repsol YPF SA has lost nearly one-fifth of its valuation after Argentina's move to seize control of YPF SA sliced off a huge chunk of the company's production and earnings. Yet, two weeks after the Argentine bombshell, some investors and analysts are starting to devise a potential upside scenario for the battered Spanish company, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Spain has joined seven other euro-zone economies in recession, according to data released Monday, providing further evidence that austerity policies are failing to regenerate confidence in the region's economies and heightening pressure on the government as the country braces for a week of antiausterity protests, The Wall Street Journal reported. Almost every piece of new economic data in recent weeks has reinforced the impression that large swaths of the European economy are contracting.