Spain’s economy ministry has said it had not made a request for economic
aid from the EU, after a newspaper report that the EU was preparing to
activate a package in case Madrid asked for it.

“This is lie.
There’s no rescue. There’s nothing asked for, nor will there be,
nothing, but nothing. I don’t know where they got this from,” an economy
ministry spokesperson told reporters. Without citing sources, the FT
Deutschland said the EU was preparing for an aid application in the
months ahead for access to the fund set up to lend to eurozone countries
that run into Greek-style payments problems.

Specifically, Spain
might need the aid if the problems at the Spanish banking sector get
worse, the report said.

However, it also cited an unnamed
European Commission spokesman as saying there were no signs of a Spanish
aid request at the moment.

Spain has suffered from fears that a
debt crisis contagion will sweep the eurozone, particularly affecting
the bloc’s weaker southern members, after Greece needed to be bailed out
by the EU because of its debt problems.

But Spain saw solid
demand for a new three year benchmark bond on June 10, a positive sign
for the Treasury ahead of a 16.2-billion-euro ($19.50bn) redemption in
July.

Spain’s unpopular minority Socialist government is having a
difficult time pushing through austerity measures and reforms aimed at
restoring the economy back to health and is in the midst of a massive
restructuring of its banking sector.

An austerity package aimed
at slashing a deficit of 11.2 percent of GDP to three percent of GDP by
2013 passed parliament by just one vote in May.