MADRID, March 30 (UPI) -- Protesters spilled into central Madrid and other Spanish cities to vent their anger at $36 billion of budget cuts the government sees essential to staving off a Greek-style economic meltdown.
Thousands of people joined a general strike, shutting down airports, train services, factories and offices. About 180 people courted arrest in clashes with police that authorities said had left about 200 people, half of them police, injured.
Protesters set debris on fire in Valencia and a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a police vehicle. Attacks on shops in Barcelona caused extensive damage.
Protesters likened their marches to demonstrations in Greece last year before and after the European Union poured billions of euros into rescue packages for that country.
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EU and Spanish economists are weighing the next outcome in Spain and whether the cuts will replicate public hardship that critics say has devastated Greek society.
Unlike Greece, which has had frequent economic problems over the past decade, the cutbacks are being received in Spain with shock and horror.
The cuts are likely to be the sharpest and toughest in democratic Spain's history and worse than anything experienced during the postwar dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
When Franco died in 1975, Spain became a constitutional monarchy under King Juan Carlos, and enjoyed relative prosperity before the eurozone crisis gained momentum last year.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy says the cutbacks are aimed at helping Spain's recovery and stimulating employment. A 24 percent jobless rate -- the highest in Europe -- is expected to rise further this year.
The government says the cutbacks are "reforms" essential to removing causes of Spain's downturn.
Rajoy is facing pressure from Brussels to reduce the country's budget deficit from 8.51 percent of its gross domestic product last year to at most 5.3 percent this year. Critics point out that goal runs counter to the government's declared aim to stimulate growth and create jobs.
Rajoy hasn't raised Spain's value added tax or cut unemployment benefits and left public pensions untouched. Bur state-sector salaries are to be frozen, the Financial Times said.
EU analysts said the financial downturn in Spain could prove more dangerous for the EU than the problems in Greece and Portugal, both tackled with multibillion-euro bailouts. Spain's troubled but large economy will defy a bailout by EU, already under increasing financial strain.
Despite those fears, eurozone ministers meeting in Copenhagen agreed to increase Europe's bailout reserves from $667 billion to $1.07 trillion. The new limit is short of a $1.3 trillion ceiling opposed by Germany and other member states.
