Via the Financial Times:
European finance ministers were warned on Friday that the underlying causes of the continent’s debt and banking crisis had yet to be resolved, as Spain, struggling to rein in its fiscal deficit, published its most austere budget since democracy returned after the Franco era.
Two confidential analyses prepared by European Union officials and distributed to ministers meeting in Copenhagen said €1tn in cheap loans to banks provided since December by the European Central Bank had provided a reprieve, but sovereigns and financial institutions needed to use the relative calm to shore up finances and balance sheets.
“Contagion may … re-emerge at very short notice, as demonstrated only a few days ago, and re-launch the potentially perverse triangle between sovereign, bank funding risk and growth,” one of the analyses, prepared by the EU’s economic and finance committee and seen by the Financial Times, said. The existence of the documents was first reported by the Italian daily La Stampa…
The second document, which was prepared by the Commission, warned bluntly: “The euro crisis is not over…”
Was it only on Wednesday that that Italy’s prime minister announced that the crisis was “almost over”?
Why yes it was. . .