Yield on Spanish bonds climbs up

Madrid, July 10 (IANS/EFE) Investors pushed the yield on Spain's benchmark 10-year bond above 7 percent by the close of trading Monday as European Union finance ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss the terms of Eurogroup aid to troubled Spanish banks.

A yield of more than 7 percent is widely viewed as unsustainable.

The risk premium on Spanish debt, the extra return investors demand compared with equivalent safe-haven German debt, rose to 574 basis points.

Continued market pressure on Spain provided the backdrop for an EU ministerial meeting whose stated purpose is a "political accord" on the conditions under which the Eurogroup will provide up to 100 billion euros ($122.7 billion) to shore up Spanish banks.

The final text is not expected to be ready until July 20.

Negotiations between the Spanish government and experts from the European Commission, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund and the European Banking Authority began two weeks ago.

Though the terms of the aid package for the banks remained undefined, investors grew less pessimistic about Spain in the course of Monday's trading after word came out of Brussels that EU finance ministers are prepared to give Madrid an extra year to bring its budget deficit below 3 percent of gross domestic product.

EU sources cited a draft document that calls for allowing Spain to run a deficit of 6.3 percent this year and to meet the below-3-percent target in 2014, rather than in 2013, as originally mandated.

--IANS/EFE

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