Rajoy defends "victory" for EU credibility Mariano Rajoy, the embattled Spanish prime minister, has defended the eurozone's €100bn bailout for Spanish banks as a victory for European credibility, for the future of the euro and for the stability of Spain's financial system. Mr Rajoy on Sunday expressed regret that Spain had not bailed out its struggling domestic banks three years ago along with other European Union members such as the UK, but said the credit line agreed among eurozone finance ministers on Saturday was essential to restore confidence and help banks provide credit to the real economy. He repeated Spanish assertions that the EU aid was different from the full bailout programmes previously provided to Greece, Ireland and Portugal by the EU and the International Monetary Fund, which involved detailed austerity targets and monitoring. There's no conditionality of any kind. This does not affect the deficit," Mr Rajoy said, placing the new loan deal in the context of his centre-right government's efforts to restructure the banking system, cut the budget deficit and reform the labour market since it took power less than six months ago. "If we hadn't done this in these past five months, what was put forward yesterday would have been a [full] bailout of the Kingdom of Spain," Mr Rajoy said. Because we had been doing our homework for five months, what did happen yesterday, what was agreed, was the opening of a line of credit for our financial system. Spain's EU partners accept that its existing austerity programmes are rigorous enough, and that the credit line will be directed at banks such as Bankia, the merger of seven regional savings banks that was nationalised by the government last month and said it had a capital shortfall of €19bn. Economists and analysts say the EU loan nevertheless amounts to a rescue for Spain because the money will go to the state Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring (Frob) and was necessary only because Spain itself could not access the sovereign bond markets at a reasonable price. An opinion poll published on Sunday in the newspaper El País showed that 78 per cent of Spaniards had "little or no" confidence in Mr Rajoy, whose Popular party won an overwhelming election victory over the Socialists in November. However, the Metroscopia poll, taken last week, showed the PP maintaining its lead over its political opponents, with 37.1 per cent support compared with 25.9 per cent for the Socialists.