Santa aria gave few details of the measures to be approved Dec. 30 but said they would include a freeze on filling new civil service vacancies except in key areas such as the security forces. She also intimated that a current wage-freeze for civil servants could be extended. However, Saenz de Santa aria said, the measures next Friday would also bring back cost-of-living adjustments for pensions.
She said the government's priority was to reduce the bloated deficit, adding that the government would present a proposal on a public spending ceiling to Parliament by Mar. 31. Spain has pledged to bring down its deficit from 11.2 percent of GDP in 2009 to within the European Union limit of 3 percent by 2013, Saenz de Santa aria also said Spain would overhaul its banking sector in the first six months of the new year. The deputy premier, who is also government spokeswoman, set Jan. 7 as a deadline for employers and unions to come up with a new labor reform agreement as part of the government's bid to get the countries near 5 million jobless back to work.
Earlier Labor Minister Fatima Banez said she was optimistic a new reform accord would be reached. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has warned that if an agreement is not reached the government will impose its own measures. Spain has the highest unemployment rate of the 17 countries that use the euro at 21.5 percent. The country is also running a swollen budget deficit at a time when the economy continues to falter following a near two-year recession triggered by the collapse of a real estate bubble.
Rajoy's Popular Party won a landslide victory in Nov. 20 elections on a promise to get the Spanish economy moving again. Spain has already made sharp cuts to its national spending and introduced several reforms under the former Socialist government in a bid to convince investors and the European Union, but the measures have so far failed to reboot the economy.
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