Thousands of Spaniards protest health, educational cuts

Tens of thousands of Spanish demonstrators have taken to the streets of the capital Madrid to protest against government plans to slash the health and education budgets.

The Sunday protest organized by Spanish Unions aims to reverse government plans to find savings of seven billion euros a year from their healthcare budgets, and shave a further three billion euros from education costs.

Madrid has proposed harsh budget cuts and a new set of tax hikes as part of its drive to reduce the public deficit and calm rising eurozone crisis fears.

“We are protesting against the cuts and the deterioration of workers’ labour rights. It is clear that we are suffering a setback of more than 30 years. The situation is disturbing but more disturbing is the situation that our children could inherit,” AFP quoted a protester as saying.

Protesters say that cuts could lead to more job losses as the country struggles with a record high unemployment rate of 24.4 percent that has left over 5.5 million people jobless.

On Monday, Spain’s Central Bank announced that the country is back in recession as its economy has shrunk for the second consecutive quarter at the end of the first quarter of 2012.

The recession will make it much harder for Spain, the fourth largest eurozone economy, to meet its deficit targets.

Spain has announced spending cuts of more than 11-billion dollars as well as tax increases to reduce the country’s deficit to avoid seeking a financial bailout like Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

The worsening debt crisis has forced EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures and tough economic reforms, triggering incidents of social unrest and massive protests in many European countries.