BRRD

Are we witnessing a movement of European bank mergers? Rumors have been circulating for several years about a merger between Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank or with BNP Paribas, between Société Générale and Unicredit, but nothing has happened so far. But lately several mergers have taken place.

To what extent will European banks withstand the current crisis? This is a crucial question because the recession we are experiencing could be followed by a banking crisis that would affect the whole economy even more severely. A CEPII study, entitled "European Banks and the Covid-19 Crash Test", sheds an interesting light on this subject.

The media outlets didn’t go with this news, probably fearing some fake news or another conspiracy theory, while examining the sources in my articles would have reassured them immediately. But did they bother?

Banking mergers are absolutely not the answer to the banking problems today – in fact, they would constitute a dangerous leap forward.

As stated by La Tribune, “Emmanuel Macron wishes the implementation of the European Banking Union – a system for joint management of bank failures – to be finalised as soon as possible in order to draw lessons from the Euro zone’s debt crisis.” Well, alright, but why is it so urgent? Is the French President aware of any disturbing report on the French banks?

The ECB wants to prevent bank runs by allowing banks to block deposits and authorise limited withdrawals, like they did in Cyprus in March, 2013. According to the institution, the deposit protection scheme is no longer necessary.

“Europe’s bank sector has grown too big and may need to shrink, possibly through mergers or failures (...) many banks in the euro area do not earn their cost of capital.” In other words, they are zombie banks, bankrupt and only kept alive by the liquidity flowing from the ECB.

Getting one’s money out of the bank – at least a large portion of it – is one thing, but what is one to do with it? The preferred investment, the most reassuring, according to observations and some polls, is real estate.

A new nail should be driven in the savers’ coffins, according to the very serious Reuters press agency: the freezing of bank accounts in order to avoid any bank run.

Let’s ask for ECBexit! Not to get out of the euro (and get back to manipulated national currencies... no, thanks!), but to drastically reduce the power of the European Central Bank.