The Spanish government and Bank of Spain stepped in yesterday to provide guarantees to clients of the bank Caja Castilla-La Mancha in the face of 'light' issues of liquidity (article in Castilian) - the Bank of Spain will provide financing of €9,000 million to protect the savings and deposits of the Caja's customers. The government insists that the bank is solvent and that it will be able to meet all demands from creditors and debtors; it also said that there was no other Spanish entity that will need similar intervention. The announcement was made on Sunday by Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega and Finance Minister Pedro Solbes; this morning, queues were forming at branches of the caja both in Castilla-La Mancha and in Barcelona, as nervous savers sought to withdraw their money.
This weekend, police identified a record number of drink-drivers (article in Castilian) during their tests for alcoholemia in Barcelona - 277 drivers were found to be over the limit and 39 were arrested, in a special campaign called 'operación 0.25' (0.25mg of alcohol is the upper limit allowed per litre of air blown into the test machine; if a driver has over 0.60mg, it's counted as a crime and they can be arrested), which involved a total of 2,150 tests carried out by 200 Guardia Urbana.
According to the IPC, in March, inflation levels fell by eight points to reach -0.1%, which is the first time it's happened in Spain since records began in 1962. Although the definitive figures won't be available until April 15th, it's thought that this fall is caused by a drop in consumer spending and the reduction in the price of petrol.