The debt-ridden Spanish region of Catalonia has asked for a bailout of 5bn euros ($6.3bn; £4bn) from the central government.
This summer, a 18bn-euro public fund was set up by Madrid to aid its 17 autonomous regions, which are in deep debt.
Catalonia represents one-fifth of the Spanish economy.
It comes as official figures showed that Spain’s economy contracted further in the second quarter.
The economy shrunk by 0.4% between April and June after a 0.3% drop in the previous three months, the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica said.
The nation’s struggling economy has now declined for three straight quarters. On an annual basis, Spain’s economy contracted by 1.3% in the second quarter.
Speculation has persisted that the country will have to request a full financial rescue.
In June, Spain requested 100bn euros ($122bn; £79bn) of loans from the eurozone’s bailout fund to help support its banks, which are struggling with bad debts from loans made in the property sector.
Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.