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Brussels, March 13 (IANS) Eurozone finance ministers have decided to ease the 2012 deficit target for Spain from the original 4.4 percent of GDP to 5.3 percent, Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker said Monday. "The figure announced previously by the Spanish government, the figure of 5.8 percent (of GDP), is dead," Juncker said at a press conference after a meeting of eurozone finance ministers. After announcing the previous government had missed its 2011 budget deficit target of 6 percent of GDP by a large margin, the new Spanish government said it would not meet the deficit target for this year either. Spain was supposed to cut its deficit-to-GDP ratio to 4.4 percent in 2012, a goal agreed with European Union (EU) finance ministers, but the new government announced earlier this month that it would only be able to cut its deficit to 5.8 percent of GDP for this year and promised to maintain a 2013 target of 3.0 percent, reported Xinhua. "The Eurogroup assesses that the timely correction of the excessive deficit should be ensured by an additional frontloaded effort of the order of 0.5 percentage of GDP," below the 5.8 percent, Juncker told reporters. In a joint statement released after the meeting, the ministers stressed the importance of "substantial progress made with structural reforms to boost employment and growth so far, which would need to be compensated with further efforts in the areas of product and service markets". However, the president urged the Spanish authorities to stick to the EU rules by bringing its deficit below 3 percent of GDP in 2013.
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