(12 Mar 2012)
1. Medium of Spanish Finance Minister, Luis De Guindos, walking into meeting room
2. EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn talking to European Central Bank President Mario Draghi; pan to Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager speaking with De Guindos; Eurogroup chief and Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, approaches De Guindos and greets him by jokingly grabbing his neck with both hands, Juncker and De Guindos shaking embracing and laughing
3. Close of De Guindos talking to Juncker
STORYLINE:
The eurozone's finance ministers struggled over how to deal with the Spanish economy at a meeting in Brussels on Monday.
After the 17 euro countries spent much of the past two years tightening their rules against overspending, Spain's high deficit has presented the currency union with the first real test to its austerity logic.
As ministers chatted with each other at the meeting, the eurogroup's chief, Jean-Claude Juncker, came up behind Spanish finance minister, Luis De Guindos, and jokingly grabbed him by the neck with both hands.
The two then appeared to be deep in discussion.
Juncker's gesture may have been a joke, but eurozone ministers have real reason to be frustrated with Spain.
Spain's new Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said earlier this month that his country would run a deficit of 5.8 percent of economic output this year - far above the 4.4 percent it had promised to the rest of the eurozone.
Rajoy insisted that Spain would still manage to bring its deficit down to 3 percent by 2013 - and thereby back in line with EU rules.
De Guindos said on Monday that Spain remained committed to fiscal adjustment and that the country's priority was to return to growth and to generate employment.
But the decision to avoid overly brutal cuts this year threatens to undermine the eurozone's efforts to convince investors that it will prevent countries from running up excessive debts.
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