MADRID | Any train traveller knows by heart the stern warning on the danger that lies in leaning out. Italians seem to pay due attention to this caution, living permanently in a risky environment. Downplaying their own problems has led them to slip to second line positions leaving Spaniards as forerunners of the raging euro battle. Spain has behaved in a most divergent way. Confronted with a looming banking crisis,…
ex gf goexback.com How to win back your ex NEW YORK | Hardly ever a small European country's parliamentary election has arisen that much attention in the U.S. Greece's vote on Sunday made the headlines in most American media, which have been following the european entangled crisis for the last months. The White House appeared to be sighing in relief. The worst case scenario for Washington (a quick and messy…
MADRID | “It is time to resort to the International Monetary Fund or the European rescue fund,” wrote in the January edition of Revista Consejeros Aristóbulo de Juan, former Bank of Spain's director general of inspection. Even Banco Santander's chairman Emilio Botín, who's always shown his antipathy to salvage competitors with his money or the taxpayers', acknowledged that the Spanish banking sector needed some €40 billion in European aid to…
Analysts at JP Morgan released Wednesday an 11-point note with the main questions triggered by the ongoing partial rescue plan to support capital needs of the Spanish banking sector. We are passing them on to you, but we think 8 is particularly interesting as it means Spanish taxpayers are pushed to the front line, and 11 is ironic, as we suspect the Spanish conservative government was unaware it was lending a…
By Tania Suárez | Vassos Shiarly, minister of Finance in Cyprus, admitted Monday night that his country would urgently need a bailout. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times refer to several European officials who have said that this rescue would rise to €3 billion to €4 billio. Shiarly said that “This issue is urgent. We know that the recapitalisation of the banks (in Cyprus) must be finished by June…
MADRID | elconfidencial.com | The rescue operation of the Spanish banks is rather a foreign banks' bailout, the online daily El Confidencial reported Tuesday. Check the International Monetary Fund's recent study on Spanish banks and a graph shows up with an eloquent figure. The exposure of foreign banks to Spain is moving towards a colossal number: €1.2 trillion. What is surprising is not just the sheer volume of it but also its…
NEW YORK | IMF managing director Christine Lagarde has denied it. So have U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Spanish government: there is no plan or request for a Spanish bailout. However, stocks pared losses Thursday after the Dow Jones agency published a report that the IMF had started contingency plans on a possible rescue loan for Spain. The reporter quoted “people involved in the handling of the Spanish crisis”….
MADRID | Utter disarray might sound a mild and tender description for the knock out effect BANKIA crash landing has inflicted on Spain’s credibility. Only a few days ago, the government downsized the issue to a trifle €7 billion support. The bill runs now at €24 billion, with the prospect to rise still higher. Spending such a huge pile of money doesn’t stand as the most worrying fact. After all,…
MADRID | Spain seems crippled by mounting economic woes. It faces a steep rise in risk premium fuelled by plunging confidence on its ability to reverse the bleak outlook ahead. Recession takes its toll in terms of higher unemployment, budgetary deviations and extensive deterioration in the banking sector. Reforms undertaken so far have failed to deliver any tangible benefit. Labour market overhaul has only helped to accelerate lay-offs, with no impact…
By Begoña Castiella, in Athens |Yorgos Peristeris is CEO at the Greek construction company Gek Terna and chairman of Terna Energy, specialised in renewable energy. Peristeris smiles from his desk at the top floor of the company’s headquarters, an interesting building designed by Michael Hopkins in Athens. Gek Terna is a renowned construction company, while Terna Energy is the first Greek renewable energy company working outside Greece, although both are listed on…