SPAIN MISSES budget target big time:

Spain missed its 2011 budget- deficit target by a larger margin than previously estimated, complicating Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s bid to rein in the euro area’s fourth-biggest shortfall amid the nation’s second recession since 2009.

Spain’s overall deficit was equivalent to 8.5 percent of gross domestic product, compared with a 6 percent goal set by the European Union, and a budget gap of 9.3 percent in 2010, Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro told a news conference in Madrid today. The government earlier estimated a deficit of about 8 percent and the 6 percent target was missed because of slippage in the 17 semi-autonomous regions and social-security system, he said.

It needs to be reminded that the 6% figure was set up by the outgoing Zapatero administration, which accused anyone who said it was going to be bigger of 'alarmists'. Almost traitors because, they said, they were people who would say anything just to damage the Socialist party in order to win the election, even if it meant they were damaging the country's reputation in the process...