Debt crisis: Spanish bad bank loans climb 12.18 More bond auctions this morning, where the eurozone's temporary bail-out fund has managed to get a sale of short term debt away at negative interest rates. The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) sold six month debt at average rates of -0.0181pc, compared with -0.0179pc at the previous auction in August. This means investors were willing to pay to lend to the find. Demand was also strong, with 2.8 bidders for every bond on offer. 11.59 Praying for divine intervention?: The Greek PM's office announced the meeting in a statement. 11.43 Irish mortgage arrears have also continued to grow, with the number of people behind on payments by more than 90 days now accounting for 14.7pc of Ireland's total loan book. But it wasn't all bad news. The EC said: However, the pace of increase in owner-occupier arrears appears to be slowing down in recent months, with a quarter-on-quarter increase in the balance of mortgages in arrears as a share of total mortgages of 1.1 pp. in the second quarter of 2012, down from 1.3 pp. in the first quarter and 1.5 pp. in the fourth quarter of 2011. 11.22 The European Commission has authorised Ireland's €1bn loan tranche as part of its EU/IMF bail-out. The news was released alongside a special report on Ireland, in which the EC said: The economy continues to develop in line with expectations, though downside risks have increased, reflecting primarily growing headwinds in main trading partners. Relative to the sixth review, the GDP growth forecast was kept broadly unchanged for 2012 (down slightly from 0.5% to 0.4%) but has been revised down more appreciably for 2013 (from 1.9% to 1.4%), though the nominal outlook is slightly better due to an upward statistical revision of past data. Unemployment remains high (14.8%), and increasingly long-term in nature. despite the strong programme implementation and the successful bond auction in late July, securing a sustained return to market funding might prove challenging. 10.54 Spaniards also said that jobless rates remained one of their biggest concerns. 90pc said that they were "very concerned" about unemployment. The jobless rate in Spain, at 25.1pc, is the highest in the industrialised world. 10.45 More than half of Spaniards believe the country will need a full-scale bail-out, according to a new report. The report, penned by Cicero Group and titled: the Pain in Spain, found that 57pc of Spaniards believed the country will need to be bailed-out by the eurozone. A more surprising finding was that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the politician most admired by the 1,000 people surveyed. Half of those questioned believed that she showed the best leadership during the crisis. Unsurprisingly, the next most popular response was "none" (23pc). Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy was selected by just 2pc, while our own PM David Cameron received just 1pc of the vote. Spaniards polled by Cicero Group said that Angela Merkel was the politician they most admired (Photo: AFP). 10.26 Investor sentiment in Germany was slightly less downbeat in th first half of September, breaking a run of four monthly declines, according to a respected think-tank. The ZEW economic poll showed economic sentiment rose to -18.2, from -25.5 in August. ZEW surveyed 263 analysts. The numbers reflect the difference between positive and negative assessments. 10.23 Here's a closer look at how the Spanish bad loan rate has increased over the past 18 months. It's also worth noting that pre-crisis bad loan rates (in 2006/2007) were less than 1pc.