Spain Sinks Deeper Into Periphery as Debt Surges: Euro Credit
This article is for subscribers only.
Spain’s debt load is set to double from where it was when Europe’s sovereign debt crisis began, eroding the economic advantages that distinguished it from the region’s periphery and helped shield it from Greek contagion.
Finance chiefs meet in Brussels today in the latest effort to save Greece from default. Spain went into the crisis with public debt of 40 percent of its gross domestic product, compared with an average ratio of 70 percent in the euro region. The European Union forecasts its debt will have almost doubled by next year, as Moody’s Investors Service says Spain is losing one of its “key relative credit strengths.”