Positive aid for Spanish banks

Updated: 2012-06-12 21:29

By Li Yang (chinadaily.com.cn)

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The Eurogroup will provide Spain's banking industry with no more than 100 billion euros ($125 billion) in aid after the Spanish government submitted its official application.

All relevant parties agree this is a timely and positive measure to relieve the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, because the collapse of the Spanish banking industry would threat the whole eurozone.

About 386 billion euros has been spent to help Greece, Ireland and Portugal since 2010. Spain will become the fourth and biggest recipient so far. As the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone, Spain has different national conditions. The 100 billion euros will be mainly used to restructure the assets of the Spanish banking industry, rather than the whole national economy.

There are no harsh additional conditions attached to these funds. Additional conditions naturally require recipient countries to tighten their fiscal policies and thus are always fiercely opposed by the nationals of recipient countries.

The question is whether this symbolic aid for Spain can really contribute to the complete solving of the eurozone crisis? If the party opposing tightening policies and aid wins the election in Greece on June 17, it is highly possible it would make the painful decision to quit the eurozone. This will be a destructive blow to both the euro and the eurozone, affecting the world economic recovery as a whole.

It is now urgent to expand the scale of the European Financial Stability Facilities and enforce the European Stability Mechanism in advance.

We are confident that the Eurogroup has the ability and wisdom to implement effective aid plans for needy countries.

The decision makers should fully consider the feeling of the people of recipient countries and maintain a good balance between austere financial policies and stimulus packages.

In short, integrating the financial policies of the Eurozone seems the only way out in the long run. But it will take a long time and will certainly be a bumpy road.

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