MADRID-Spain will stick to harsh aus­ter­i­ty mea­sures un­til it emerges from fi­nan­cial cri­sis, the prime min­is­ter said yes­ter­day, promis­ing that the coun­try would sur­vive the present eco­nom­ic tur­moil. Mar­i­ano Ra­joy ac­knowl­edged that the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing tur­bu­lence, but said "we are not at the edge of a precipice, we will not sink." The gov­ern­ment has "the will to per­se­vere in this line for as long as is nec­es­sary," he said.

Spain, where un­em­ploy­ment stands at a Eu­ro­zone high of 24.4 per cent, has im­posed spend­ing cuts and tax hikes to es­cape a cri­sis many fear could even­tu­al­ly swal­low oth­er coun­tries us­ing the Eu­ro­pean sin­gle cur­ren­cy. Ra­joy said yes­ter­day that he sup­port­ed the cre­ation of a sin­gle Eu­ro­pean fis­cal au­thor­i­ty to up­hold the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the eu­ro, and ac­knowl­edged that for this to hap­pen it would be nec­es­sary for mem­ber states to "sur­ren­der more of their fis­cal au­ton­o­my."

He said that while it was pos­si­ble Spain could have lived be­yond its means, it was al­so true that those who are now crit­i­cis­ing Spain-a ref­er­ence.

AP