Eurozone finance ministers agree on Spain bailout terms

PanARMENIAN.Net - Euro area finance ministers agreed early Tuesday, July 10 on the terms of a bailout for Spain's troubled banks, saying that €30 billion ($36.88 billion) can be ready by the end of this month.

According to the Associated Press, the finance ministers for the 17 countries that use the euro as their official currency will return to Brussels on July 20 to finalize the agreement, having first obtained the approval of their governments or parliaments, eurozone chief Jean-Claude Juncker said.

As part of the agreement with Spain, finance ministers from all 27 European Union countries are expected Tuesday to approve a one-year extension, until 2014, of Spain's deadline for achieving a budget deficit of 3 percent.

There will be specific conditions for specific banks, and the supervision of the financial sector overall will be strengthened, Juncker said.

"We are convinced that this conditionality will succeed in addressing the remaining weakness in the Spanish banking sector," he said.

Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said the agreement should be finalized soon.

"We have a tentative deal on the bailout conditions for a bailout of Spanish banks," De Jager said. "The total will likely be 100 billion euros. Some countries like the Netherlands, Germany and Finland need to get parliamentary approval. We hope this can be wrapped up within a week."

The exact amount of the bailout will likely not be known until September, when individual examinations of different Spanish banks have been completed.