Derfor faldt aktiemarkederne tirsdag. Markedet skal ikke regfne med statshjælp til nødlidende italienske banker.
The European Union’s top court backed EU guidelines designed to prevent taxpayers from footing the bill for bailing out stricken lenders, strengthening the hand of Brussels regulators as Italy fights to shield some bondholders caught up in the nation’s banking crisis.
Tuesday’s decision is a show of support for the European Commission, which updated its crisis rules for banks in 2013 as part of a shift from taxpayer-funded bailouts to bail-in, the practice of imposing possible losses on investors before public money can flow.
“Burden-sharing by shareholders and subordinated creditors as a prerequisite for the authorization, by the commission, of state aid to a bank with a shortfall is not contrary to EU law,” according to the EU Court of Justice. The Luxembourg-based court’s decision is binding and can’t be appealed.
The “banking communication” sets out rules for when burden-sharing should be applied to shareholders and subordinated creditors, and when it can be avoided. The court said that “burden-sharing measures can be understood as being designed to prevent recourse to state aid merely as a tool to overcome the financial difficulties of the banks concerned.”