3 trillion in aid and still fragile

“Euro crisis: banks under pressure,” headlines French daily Le Figaro. The idea of a Greek default being no longer taboo, “the Old Continent’s banks are under tremendous pressure on stock markets,” the paper says. Three French banks, BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole are on the front line with holdings of about €37 billion of Italian public debt and holdings of nearly €6 billion of Greek public debt. Although Moody’s rating agency could downgrade their credit rating this week, “the question of whether the European banks holding State bonds from fragile Eurozone members are sufficiently capitalised is widely debated,” Le Figaro notes. As is whether or not the Member States should fly to their rescue.

But as Spanish daily Público says in a headline, three years after the failure of Lehman Brothers, “saving the banks has already cost €2,000 billion” in direct State aid, to which must be added the €3,000 billion (of which €500 billion by the European Central Bank) injected by central banks to add liquidity to the international financing system. “The current relapse proves that the government support given to the banks didn’t reactivate the economy,” the paper says, adding “What’s the use of saving the global banking system to the detriment of the taxpayer’s money?”