Spain to save 3 billion euros a year on energy

Prime minister Zapatero yesterday announced a plan to save some 3 billion euros a year on the state’s energy bill in a further move to tackle the country’s economic crisis.

The plan proposes to reduce energy use by 20 percent in some 2,000 public buildings, the Spanish Prime Minister said in a meeting with businessmen and unions in Seville.

“Savings in energy use are savings for all citizens,” he said.

It forms part of measures to tackle the economic crisis in Spain that are to be approved by the government this month, the newspaper El Pais said.

The Spanish economy, the fourth-largest in the eurozone, has been stuck in recession since the global financial crisis hastened the collapse of its once-buoyant property sector at the end of 2008.

The recession sent the unemployment rate soaring to nearly 19 percent in the fourth quarter.

On the 29th of January the government announced a plan to save 50 billion euros over three years in a bid to slash its massive public deficit from an estimated 11.4 percent of GDP this year to within the 3 percent limit set by the EU for 2013.