MADRID, May 25 (Reuters) – Spain’s wealthiest autonomous region, Catalonia, needs financing
help from the central government because it is running out of options for refinancing debt this
year, Catalan President Artur Mas said on Friday.

“We don’t care how they do it, but we need to make payments at the end of the month. Your
economy can’t recover if you can’t pay your bills,” Mas told a group of reporters from foreign
media.

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s prime minister voiced concern on Wednesday about the state’s ability to finance itself as fears mounted over a spread of the euro zone debt crisis from Greece and a nationalised bank delayed publishing accounts amid talk of it needing more aid.

With creditors spooked by Greece’s difficulties further east along the Mediterranean, the cost of borrowing for Mariano Rajoy’s government hit 6.5 percent on benchmark 10-year bonds, more than 500 basis points above German debt and a record in the 13 years the two states have shared the common currency.

MADRID, May 16 (Reuters) – Spain faces trouble financing
itself as its borrowing costs shoot up, Prime Minister Mariano
Rajoy said on Wednesday, underscoring the widening impact of the
euro zone crisis sparked by Greece’s political stalemate.

“It’s a difficult and complicated situation. The risk
premium has risen a lot and that means that it is difficult to
finance yourself at a reasonable price,” Rajoy told reporters in
the hallways of Parliament on Wednesday morning.

MADRID (Reuters) – Hoping to put an end to a four-year banking crisis, Spain’s government effectively took over Bankia SA (BKIA.MC: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), one of the country’s biggest banks, late on Wednesday after days of market anxiety over the lender’s viability.

The centre-right government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told Spaniards the banking sector was safe and said more measures to strengthen ailing lenders would come on Friday.

MADRID/ROME (Reuters) – The election of Francois Hollande in France gives the leaders of struggling southern European countries a new ally in their effort to temper the German-led drive for rigid austerity that has exacerbated their economic woes.

Socialist Hollande’s victory breaks up the centre-right tandem of his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel, whose European fiscal pact demanded deep spending cuts in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Central Bank is consulting with international bankers and property experts on setting up a holding company to value and sell off toxic real estate assets from the country’s troubled financial sector, two sources said on Monday.

The consultation process will last a few weeks, one of the sources, from the central bank, said. “When we have those opinions we will use them for input on the formula for the entity,” the source told Reuters.

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain has threatened to retaliate against Argentina for nationalizing a Spanish energy firm, but Madrid will find it hard to put real pressure on a maverick nation that has been shut out of world debt markets and has ignored international fines in previous disputes.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez said this week she would fulfill a life-long dream and solve her country’s energy shortage by seizing control of its biggest oil company, YPF, a subsidiary of Spain’s Repsol (REP.MC: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain has threatened to retaliate against Argentina for nationalizing a Spanish energy firm, but Madrid will find it hard to put pressure on a maverick nation that has been shut out of world debt markets and has ignored international fines in previous disputes.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez said this week she would fulfill a life-long dream and solve her country’s energy shortage by seizing control of its biggest oil company, YPF, a subsidiary of Spain’s Repsol.

MADRID/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Spain is in a deep economic and financial hole. Unemployment exceeds 23 percent and Madrid has missed targets to reduce its gaping budget deficit.

With yields on Spanish government bonds back around 6 percent, many pundits reckon a humiliating international bailout beckons to rescue a banking system weakened, like the economy, by a burst housing bubble.

MADRID/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Spain is in a deep economic and financial hole. Unemployment exceeds 23 percent and Madrid has missed targets to reduce its gaping budget deficit.

With yields on Spanish government bonds back around 6 percent, many pundits reckon a humiliating international bailout beckons to rescue a banking system weakened, like the economy, by a burst housing bubble.