German authorities have recalled more than 100,000 credit cards over fears that crooks may have obtained details of the cards via an unnamed Spanish payment processing firm.

Holidaymakers who used their Visa or Mastercard credit card in Spain may be at risk of fraud following the reported security breach, which prompted the largest plastic card recall in German history. The Volks and Raiffeisenbank banking group alone recalled 60,000 potentially compromised credit cards as a precautionary measure, AFP reports.

Spanish banks are hiding the true extent of their losses and the crisis in Spain’s financial sector has still not reached its peak, international credit ratings agency Moody’s warned on Tuesday.

“Moody’s remains concerned that many entities appear to be avoiding recognition of the true scale of the asset quality deterioration in their books,” the agency said in a report on Spain’s banking sector.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has kept interest rates on hold at 1%.

The Bank is expected to wait several months before raising rates as it tries to nurture the eurozone economy.

Earlier this week, revised figures showed eurozone economic activity shrank by 0.2% between April and June – worse than originally thought.

The area is expected to emerge from recession in the third quarter. Some countries including France and Germany have already returned to growth.

Spanish consumer prices fell for the seventh month running in September, dropping 1.0 percent over 12 months, official figures showed on Tuesday.

In August, prices plunged 0.8 percent.

That followed a fall of 1.4 percent in July, 1.0 percent in June, 0.9 percent in May, 0.2 percent in April and 0.1 percent in March, which was the first 12-month drop since the INE statistics office began tracking inflation in 1961.

State pension recipients who live overseas have seen their pension income cut by as much as 12pc in just two months because of the recent falls in the value of the pound.

Those who have retired to Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have seen their pensions fall by about 12pc as sterling has lost value against the local currencies.

Expats who retired to eurozone countries such as Spain have seen pension incomes fall by about 7.5pc.

The number of people out of work in the UK has risen to its highest level in 14 years, official figures have shown.

Unemployment increased by 210,000 to 2.47m in the three months to July, taking the jobless rate to 7.9%, the Office for National Statistics said.

Claims for unemployment benefit in August grew by 24,400 from July to 1.61m, the highest since May 1997.

The eurozone is emerging from recession, according to the latest forecast from the European Commission.

“The economy appears to be at a turning point,” the commission said.

But because the economy contracted by more than expected in the first half, the overall annual forecast has remained unchanged at -4%.

Separately, official figures showed that eurozone industrial production fell by 0.3% in July compared with the previous month.

The newspaper says the increase will be announced with some months notice

El Mundo announced on Sunday that the Government is planning a 2% increase on VAT. The paper says that the Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, plans to increase indirect taxes and cut spending at the same time.

The Industry and Innovation and Development Ministries will have to postpone some infrastructure projects.

Spain’s government said on Friday that it would strive to prevent job losses at the Opel factory in Spain following the announcement by General Motors that it is selling the automaker.

The government “is attempting to ensure that jobs are not lost in Spain” over the move, Finance Minister Elena Salgado told national radio.

Under a deal unveiled on Thursday, General Motors agreed to sell a 55-percent stake in Opel to Canadian auto parts maker Magna and to state-owned Russian lender Sberbank. GM will retain 35 percent and employees the rest.

The Spanish government has announced that taxes will be raised to pay for the soaring budget deficit as the nation struggles with the highest unemployment rate in Europe

Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero, the Socialist prime minister, told parliament on Wednesday that a “moderate rise” in taxes was necessary to “to guarantee sufficient capacity to meet the needs of providing social protection and investing in infrastructure.”

The Spanish government said Wednesday it would impose tax hikes equal to 1.5 percent of total output next year as it struggles with a deep recession and Europe’s highest jobless rate.

Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told parliament the “moderate rise” in taxes was needed “to guarantee sufficient capacity to meet the needs of providing social protection and investing in infrastructure”.

About 10,000 unemployed immigrants have taken advantage of a Spanish programme to compensate them if they return to their country of origin, Labour Minister Celestino Corbacho said Monday.

The figure includes the number of jobless immigrants who have taken advantage of the so-called “voluntary return programme” as well as their family members, he said during an interview with Onda Cero.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has kept interest rates on hold at 1%.

The decision not to change rates was widely expected, as the ECB waits to see the full impact of the measures it has already taken on the economy.

Eurozone rates were cut from 1.25% to a record low of 1% in May this year, but are still among the highest for developed economies.

The fragile nature of Europe’s economic recovery was laid bare Tuesday as unemployment burst through the 15 million barrier in the single currency eurozone.

As leaders of G20 economies prepare to cross swords on post-crisis strategy, the number of people out of work in the 16 countries that use the euro hit a 10-year high in July, official EU data showed.

It comes after three months of falls because of the Government’s temporary E program

Unemployment in Spain has risen again after three months of falls. The forecasts from the Ministry for Employment have been met with an increase of 84,985 people in the number of people registered at INEM employment offices for August, taking the total number out of work to 3,629,080.

The increase is the second worst August number ever, beaten only by the increase seen in August last year.

Unemployment levels across the 16 countries that use the euro hit a 10-year high in July, as the impact of the recession continued to be felt.

The number of people unemployed across the eurozone region totalled 15.1 million people in July, a seasonally-adjusted rate of 9.5%.

This was the worst monthly percentage figure recorded since May 1999.

The rate across all 27 members of the European Union was 9% – a total of 21.8 million people out of work.

Spain’s current account deficit fell nearly 60 percent in June from the same month last year as imports fell in the midst of a deep recession, the country’s central bank said Monday.

It reached EUR 3.3 billion that month, down from EUR 7.9 billion in June 2008, it said in a statement.

During the first six months of the year the payments balance showed a cumulative deficit of EUR 34.1 billion, down from EUR 58.6 billion during the same period last year.

Spanish consumer prices fell for the sixth consecutive month in August, although at a slower rate, dropping 0.8 percent year-on-year.In July, prices plunged 1.4 percent.

That followed falls of 1.0 percent in June, 0.9 percent in May, 0.2 percent in April and 0.1 percent in March, which was the first 12-month drop since the INE statistics office began tracking inflation in 1961.

El País has printed what it claims are the Prime Minister’s wishes

El País newspaper has reported that the Spanish Prime Minister has decided how to increase taxes in the next budget.

The paper reports that José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has ordered that tax increases be centred on rentas del capital, that is to say non-earned income from bank interest or dividends, profits from the sale of shares or investment funds, life insurances, and profit from the sale of property and other assets.

The Spanish government will raise taxes to help plug a gaping public deficit caused by the economic downturn but any increases will be short-lived, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.

“There will be some adjustments, some revisions, some increases and some decreases, but in all cases the changes will be limited and temporary,” he told a news conference following a weekly cabinet meeting.