Spain’s public debt shoots up by €22.5 billion in March, despite coronavirus crisis only affecting two weeks

SPAIN’S public debt has shot up by €22.5 billion in March alone, despite the coronavirus crisis only affecting half of the month.

That is the highest month-to-month increase since February 2013, when the euro crisis forced Spain to borrow money at very expensive rates.

According to the Bank of Spain, that means the public debt has now risen to an all-time high of €1.22 trillion.

The Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) also recently announced that the country’s GDP had dropped by more than 5% in the first quarter of this year alone.

In any case, according to the Bank of Spain’s estimations, all these figures will skyrocket to unimaginable levels in the coming months.

Governor Pablo Hernández de Cos yesterday addressed Congress and reinforced the importance that politicians reach long-term agreements ‘with various other legislatures’ in order to face the ‘magnitude of the challenge’.

The Governor also warned that the best case scenario published by the Bank of Spain last month has now been ruled out as no longer possible.

Now they believe there are only two possibilities for the country’s economy.

In the best case scenario, the debt would reach 115% of the GDP this year, but in the worst case it would rise to 122% and remain at 120% for next year as well.