Spanish government to cut budgetary salaries by 5% and lay off 13,000 budgetary personnel

The Spanish government announced on Wednesday its plans to cut by 5% budgetary salaries and to decrease public spending by 6 billion euro, AFP informs. Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero declared that the measures are necessary to reach the budgetary deficit targets set by the EU.

The measures will reduce the budgetary deficit by 6% of GDP in 2011. In 2009, the deficit was 11.2% of GDP. Zapatero announced that public sectors will be frozen in 2011 and 13,000 budgetary personnel will be laid off.

The Spanish government announced that it will urge regional governments to decrease spending by 1.2 billion euro.