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Spain to Follow EU Lead on Bank Levy

Source: Reuters - Mon 5th Apr 2010

Spain will follow Europe's lead if steps are taken to impose a levy on banks, which may be discussed at this month's meeting of EU finance ministers, its economy minister said in an interview published on Monday. "Of course if Europe finally decides to put in place a levy on the financial sector then we will do it too," said Elena Salgado in an interview in newspaper El Publico.

Last week Germany and France said bank levies should be imposed internationally as economies aim to strike an agreement on how best to charge banks to contribute to the costs of securing the financial system.

Gordon Brown said major economies were close to agreeing a global tax on banks, the Financial Times reported on Monday, but added that the British Prime Minister played down expectations of a deal at the next G20 meeting in June.

Salgado said that while nothing had been agreed yet either in Europe or the United States, there were better chances of levies being discussed at this month's Ecofin meeting of EU finance ministers in the Spanish capital.

Salgado also said there was no urgency at the moment to firm up proposals to cut Spain's surging budget deficit.

In a report issued in March, the European Commission doubted that Spain could meet its deficit targets given they were based on optimistic forecasts for the economy to grow again by 3 percent by 2012, and called on Spain to present more details.

Spain's public deficit rose to an estimated 11.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, and the country has promised to bring it back within an EU limit of 3 percent by 2013.

Salgado said the government's forecasts were unchanged and the economy was expected to grow in each quarter of this year from the previous quarter -- but to shrink by 0.3 percent for the year as a whole.

A labour reform, seen as key for Spain's budget cutting targets, was on course to be finalised by mid-May, she said.

She also said that a planned hike in value added tax from July would not hurt the growth outlook as consumption was gradually improving.

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