Spain’s public debt at record high at the end of 2012

New official data reveal that Spain’s public debt reached a new record of 84.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) at the end of 2012 amid the worsening financial crisis in the country.

The data released on Friday linked the decline to increased expenditure at the federal level as well as in the country’s 17 autonomous regions.

This is while on Thursday thousands of students and teachers demonstrated in the Spanish capital Madrid to protest against the government’s budget cuts in the education sector.

The demonstration was called by the national students’ union, which says Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government has cut five billion euros (USD 6.5 billion) from public education budgets in the past year.

Battered by the global financial downturn, the Spanish economy collapsed into recession in the second half of 2008, taking with it millions of jobs.

The Spanish government has also been sharply criticized over its austerity measures that are hitting the middle and working classes the hardest.

However, the government has remained adamant, saying the austerity measures are needed to carry it through the crisis.

The eurozone’s fourth-largest economy must lower its deficit to 4.5 percent in 2013, and 2.8 percent in 2014. Economists, however, say those targets will be difficult to meet amid poor prospects for the country’s economic recovery.

A record 5.04 million Spaniards were registered as unemployed in February, as many young graduates and qualified professionals are forced to find work abroad.