NICOSIA — Beleaguered countries like Spain have been counting on a quick and neat way to fix their banks without taking on more crippling debt.
But a weekend meeting here of European Union finance ministers that was meant to lay the groundwork for that plan revealed the continued difficulty of reaching consensus among the 27 member states — even on measures to which they have already agreed in principle.
The disagreements also left open a pressing question: How long can Spain afford to go it alone without outside financial assistance?
Spanish banks need tens of billions of euros that Madrid cannot afford to lend. And many economists and analysts say that it is only a matter of time before Spain's debt-plagued central government itself may need a helping hand.
It was on the banking front where the euro zone's discord was most evident over the weekend.
The Spanish finance minister, with French and Italian backing, called for a quick timetable on measures that would allow a bank rescue program for Spain to proceed under terms favored by the government in Madrid. But ministers from Germany and elsewhere were essentially saying, "Not so fast."
And even as that dispute unspooled in Cyprus, on the other edge of the euro zone tens of thousands of demonstrators in Spain and Portugal continued to march in the streets over the weekend. They were protesting government-imposed austerity measures that had taken a toll on the economies of both countries.
In Portugal, the government is struggling to narrow its deficit to meet the terms of its international bailout. In Spain, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is trying to cope with his country's mounting debt problems and recession-racked economy.
Time would seem not to be on his side — despite the assessment in Nicosia of Austria's finance minister, Maria Fekter, that "Europe is stabilized."
Although the European Central Bank's recent announcement of a program for buying troubled countries' government bonds brought some calm to the euro zone, it was an even more recent European policy announcement that was the subject of discord among the finance ministers meeting in Nicosia.
That was the proposal last Wednesday from the European Commission to create a single regulator, working under the central bank, to oversee the euro zone's 6,000 banks. The commission proposed setting this process in motion by the beginning of next year and having the new system fully in place by January 2014.
The terms under which Spain hopes its bank rescue can proceed depend on quick adoption of the plan to create a central euro zone banking authority. The euro zone's bailout funds — the European Financial Stability Facility and its successor, the European Stability Mechanism — are not currently allowed to lend money directly to banks — but could do so under the new bank supervisory system.
"We need to stick to the timetable," Spain's economy minister, Luis de Guindos, insisted on Saturday to reporters in Nicosia. "The objective for now has to be ambitious."
Seconding that sentiment was the French finance minister, Pierre Moscovici. "We can't waste time," he told reporters.
But Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, said at a news conference over the weekend that the commission's timetable "will not be possible."
Mr. Schäuble said the plan as currently drafted had created unrealistic expectations for how rapidly such a big change could be implemented across the euro zone. German state governments also are balking at giving the central bank oversight of their sparkassen — the hundreds of small and midsize savings banks that do much of the lending to consumers and small businesses.
The dispute is critical to Spain because, in June, euro zone finance ministers agreed to muster as much as €100 billion, or $130 billion, in emergency loans for the country's ailing banking industry.
By GINIA BELLAFANTE 17 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/business/global/no-easy-answers-on-how-to-fix-europes-banks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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