RAJOY Awaits Reprieve as Spanish Recession Evidence Mounts:

Spain will probably secure two more years to tame the largest budget deficit in the European Union as first-quarter data show the effects of the toughest austerity measures in its democratic history.

The European Commission will decide tomorrow whether to grant Spain until 2016 to bring its deficit back within the EU limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product. Its verdict is due as a series of releases this week including mortgage lending, gross domestic product and inflation may underline that the construction-sector slump that triggered the nation’s economic crisis in 2008 is far from over.