admin“No one should be excluded from the outcome of the economic recovery that we all want and hope for,” the king told a cabinet meeting, which he has the constitutional right to chair but seldom does.
“I’m referring particularly to the young and those who suffer a lack of employment and prospects for the future,” said the 74-year-old monarch.
The king’s comments came two days after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy — obliged by Brussels to order new cuts and tax increases to meet newly relaxed deficit-cutting commitments — revealed a new 65-billion-euro (US$80-billion) austerity package.
The package includes a rise in VAT sales tax, lower jobless benefits and reduced income for government workers, measures that are expected to add to the pain of a recession and a 24,4 percent unemployment rate that among the youth stands at 52 percent.
Critics have slammed the package, saying it will worsen the current recession and that the new measures will hit hardest those who earn low and average wages.
Spain is the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy and is struggling to come out of a deep recession.
In July it is to become the fourth country in the eurozone, after Greece, Ireland and Portugal, to get bailout funds when it receives the first tranche of the up to 100 billion euros (US$122 billion) that the EU has agreed to loan it for its banking sector. — AFP.
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