SPAIN has funneled all the public spending it can into tackling the country's economic crisis, Spanish Finance Minister Pedro Solbes said in an interview published on Sunday.
In my opinion, we have used all of the public spending margin we have, we have even gone a little further than we had to, if you interpret the stability pact in a strict way, Solbes told El Pais.
Under the terms of the stability pact, eurozone members are not allowed to run up deficits in excess of three percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
To counter a lagging economy sparked by a slide in the Spanish real estate sector, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government increased public spending in 2008.
As the country teetered closer to the brink of recession, the government handed out 14 billion euros (19 billion dollars) to Spanish families in an income tax cut.
It also earmarked a large portion of an 11-billion-euro stimulus package for public woks.
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