Spain pins hopes on tough ‘crisis budget’

Spain presented a tough 2013 budget in what many see as an effort to pre-empt the likely conditions of an international bailout, deepening spending cuts that have sent angry Spaniards into the streets.

Ministry budgets were slashed by 8.9% for next year and public sector wages frozen for a third year as prime minister Mariano Rajoy battles to trim one of the eurozone’s biggest deficits while unemployment benefit costs rise.

His deputy, Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, described it “as a crisis budget aimed at emerging from the crisis”.