Spain, Europe Debt Crisis | featured news

Thousands of students and teachers staged a strike across Spain on Thursday to protest government austerity measures and a planned new education reforms.

When King Juan Carlos appeared at a recent basketball game in front of thousands of subjects, he was greeted by persistent heckling and whistling. It was an unprecedented spectacle in a nearly four-decade reign over which the monarch has basked in the nation's love and respect.

Local governments across Spain have been paying their suppliers' bills months behind schedule, forcing companies to help shoulder the financial woes of the Spanish government.

The Spanish government said Wednesday it will decide within the next few weeks whether to ask for outside financial help, noting it might opt for a precautionary line of credit instead of bailout cash.

Spain could ask for financial aid from the euro zone next month and if it does the request would likely be dealt with alongside a revised loan program for Greece and a bailout for Cyprus in one big package, euro zone officials said.

Spain’s conservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, is not known as a gambling man. But as Europe’s debt crisis stretches on, he is playing a tense game of chicken with the financial markets, betting that Spain can balance its books with homegrown austerity while putting off — maybe forever — a humiliating bailout from the European Union.

Tens of thousands of Spaniards and Portuguese rallied in the streets of their countries' capitals Saturday to protest enduring deep economic pain from austerity cuts.

Spain's debt level and borrowing needs are set to rise next year, piling pressure on the government to apply for international aid, as it pours funds in to cash-strapped regions and an ailing banking system, its budget showed on Saturday.

Spain, deflecting pressure to spell out whether it needs more European financial support, told euro zone finance ministers on Friday it will set clear deadlines for structural economic reforms by the end of the month.

Spanish jobless claims rose at the slowest pace in six years in August, the country's labor ministry said, a sign that surging unemployment in the euro zone's fourth-largest economy is leveling off.