New European Union rules on
bank bail-ins put the economy at risk and are an obstacle to
Italy's growth, the Confindustria industrialists association
research center (CSC) said Friday.
"Some banking rules recently adopted in Europe and others
that are being debated - all theoretically aimed at
strengthening the banking system and reducing risks to the
economy - are actually counterproductive," the CSC report said.
"Not only for peripheral countries...but also for the core
countries that inspired those rules".
"Placing limits on bank purchases of government bonds would
increase credit costs and fails to break the link between
banking debt and sovereign debt," the CSC added.
The report said banking systems remain national insofar as
government bond yields guide medium-to-long term rates. Placing
limits on bond buys would cause a credit crunch, the report
said.
As well, new EU bail-in rules that say shareholders,
bondholders and clients with accounts of over 100,000 euros must
take losses if the bank fails "quadruplicate the costs for
taxpayers".
As far as toxic loans are concerned, the CSC blamed "a long
and deep recession" over recklessness on the part of lenders.
Measures to immediately free bank balances from
non-performing loans are "essential to relaunching credit and
the economy, but some measures are being stymied by the new EU
rules," the CSC said.
"State guarantees at market prices do not solve the
problem," the report said.
The CSC called for more vehicle companies in which to
transfer the bad loans, spreading losses over several fiscal
years, and speeding up enforcement of collateral.
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