State aid: Commission approves award of slots at Paris-Orly airport to Vueling in context of Air France’s recapitalisation

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission has ranked Vueling first among the air carriers that have applied for the portfolio of up to 18 daily slots at Paris-Orly airport. These will be made available by Air France to remedy possible undue competition distortions following its recapitalisation by […]

State aid: Commission concludes that recapitalisation of German NordLB is market conform

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission has found Germany’s plans to strengthen the capital position of state-owned Norddeutsche Landesbank – Girozentrale (NordLB) to be free of any State aid. The measures involve a direct investment of €2.8 billion as well as investments to carry out the necessary […]

Deutsche Bank chased away from US, threatened with more fines

The US Department of Justice settled its claims against Deutsche Bank, the biggest German lender, for packaging and selling toxic mortgage securities to uninformed customers prior to the 2008-2010 financial crisis. Initially, the Justice Department had asked for $14 billion, but it seems it settled for a fine of $7.2bn. However, this is not the […]

Fair completion rules and the law of gravity don’t apply to banks

There is no end to EU Commission’s approvals of state aid and government bailouts of hundreds of EU struggling banks, as if the extensive fair competition legislation of the Union is valid for every other sector of the economy at the exception of banks. In the latest incident, the EU competition authorities actually looked the […]

The Parliament paves the way for the creation of the European Banking Union

Today, 18 October, is the last day for MEPs to table their amendments with the Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Committee, in the process of formulating the legislature’s proposal for an EU mechanism to sort out troubled banks. This is the much debated bank resolution and recovery mechanism and fund. The Committee vote is planned for […]

The banks want now free capital from taxpayers

Benoît Cœuré, a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, delivered a speech today on “The implications of bail-in rules for bank activity and stability”. This was the opening speech at conference on “Financing the recovery after the crisis – the roles of bank profitability, stability and regulation”, staged by Milan’s Bocconi […]

Bank resolutions and recapitalisations by the ESM may end up politically swayed

Klaus Regling, the Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), speaking yesterday at the European Parliament, when pressed by legislators, accepted that the wealthy ESM under conditions could function as a backstop and finance jointly with other sources, euro area bank resolutions and recapitalisations. Regling did concede that he was “open to considering other […]

IMF v Germany: Eurogroup keeps the fight under control

As it usually happens in the European Union, a much debated and infested with conflicting interests major issue, like the bank recapitalisation, will not be decided upon in one go but it will remain open for as much time as needed to mitigate differences. Yesterday evening the Eurogroup meeting, which usually precedes the Ecofin Council […]

EU Parliament: It takes real banks to fight unemployment and recession

The European Parliament has a unique ability to identify the key issues in the Union’s conjuncture, not only in the political but also in the economic front. Seemingly the close contact of its members with their constituents is at the heart of this special property. Seen under this light, the last Parliamentary debate on what […]

The banks dragged Eurozone down to fiscal abyss

For a long time now economic analysts and commentators have been arguing that government support to financial institutions was the main culpable party of excess fiscal deficits in the Eurozone and the European Union as a whole. Those are direct subsidies under the form of capital injections, quite different from the support to lenders from […]

The undead banks

History has proved that ideology and logic (science) are in direct conflict. If you want to serve them both the outcome is usually a monster or a statement of the obvious. Take for example the soviet science, full of proletarian ideology at its apex during the Stalinist period. Its most cherished achievement was the experiments […]