The Associated Press

Spaniards dressed up like Bishops for a stag party play the role of a confessor in downtown Madrid, Saturday June 9 2012. Spain will ask for a bank bailout from the eurozone, becoming the fourth and largest country to seek help since the single currency bloc's debt crisis erupted.(AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza)

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Business Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) — A $125 billion plan to rescue Spain’s banks won’t solve Europe’s debt crisis or ease the pain of double-digit unemployment across the continent.

But it is likely to calm financial markets and buy time for European policymakers to work with other weak economies threatening the stability of the 17 countries that use the euro.

Europe still has plenty of troubles to address in the three other countries that have already received financial help €’’ Greece, Portugal and Ireland. In Greece, voters could elect a government next week that will refuse to live up to the terms of the country’s $170 billion rescue package. Portugal is combating a toxic combination of high debt and 15 percent unemployment. Ireland is cleaning up a banking mess a lot like Spain's. Then there’s Italy, the eurozone’s third-largest economy, where government debt is piling up as the economy stagnates.

‘‘We still have some pretty fundamental problems to solve,’’ says Nicolas Veron, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brusssels. ‘‘We need more radical solutions than this one.’’