The Coming Crisis: Spanish recession set to deepen as austerity bites

austerity (Photo credit: 401(K) 2012)

The Spanish economy is falling deeper into recession and depositors are pulling their money out of the banks, figures published on Tuesday showed, , while the country's most economically important region, Catalonia, said it needed a major rescue from Madrid.

Spain's recession grew stronger in the second quarter of the year and is expected to get worse as austerity measures introduced in response to theeuro zone debt crisis cut into demand for goods and services.

A rush by consumers and firms to withdraw their money from Spanish banks intensified in July, with private sector deposits falling almost 5 percent, to 1.509 trillion euros ($1.896 trillion) at end-July from 1.583 trillion a month earlier.

Analysts believe it is inevitable that Spain will soon have to call for a European rescue package to help bring its debt costs down as austerity measures designed to slash the public deficit push the economy deeper into recession.

Adding to Spain's bleak outlook, the north-eastern region of Catalonia, which represents around a fifth of the country's economy, said it needed a 5 billion euro rescue from the central government to meet its financing needs and debt costs this year. ... Continue to read.