EU finance ministers reach draft deal on bank bailouts

BBC News, 27 June 2013

Eurozone crisis

• Bank staff fear for jobs and savings
• Is Cyprus's euro membership viable?
• Q&A: Cyprus deal
• German gamble

German Finance Minister Wolfgang
 Schaeuble: "The talks were lengthy,
quite difficult and intense"

European Union (EU) finance ministers have agreed an outline plan on how to rescue troubled banks - without leaving taxpayers to face the bill.

The banks' creditors and shareholders will take the first hits, followed by savers with deposits of more than 100,000 euros (£85,000).

If that is not enough, government help will be called upon and taxpayers will be among the last to shoulder losses.

EU taxpayers have had to pay for a series of bank rescues in recent years.

Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the outline deal marked a big change in the way that troubled banks are bailed out.

"If a bank gets in trouble we will now, throughout Europe, have one set of rules on who pays the bill," he said.

"The financial sector itself will now to a very, very large extent become responsible for dealing with its own problems."

The next step is for EU governments to negotiate over the legislation with the European parliament.

'The new rule'

The global financial crisis coupled with the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone has hit the region's banking sector severely.

Countries from across the EU - such as Cyprus, Spain and Ireland - have pumped tens of billions of euros in to try and prop up their ailing banks over the past few years.

In each case, the national government had to foot the bill for rescuing its banks, leading to market fears that the losses at the banks may be more than the government could absorb.

The problem was compounded by the fact that most eurozone governments rely on their own banks to lend them the money they need.

However, things changed earlier this year after Cyprus was asked to raise money through a levy on all Cypriot bank deposits - including those below 100,000 euros - as a condition for securing a loan package worth 10bn euros (£8.4bn; $13bn) from its EU partners and the International Monetary Fund.

But that proposal caused panic in financial markets and was quickly withdrawn.

On Thursday Ireland's Finance Minister Michael Noonan, who chaired the latest talks, said that the new plan aimed to establish clarity on who paid to rescue ailing banks.

"Our aim is to have a common approach throughout Europe so our taxpayers no longer have to shoulder the burden," he said.

"This establishes 'bail-ins' as the new rule," he added, referring to a term used to describe losses being shouldered by a bank and its stakeholders instead of "bailouts" which use public funds.

Earlier this month, ministers agreed guidelines on how the eurozone's emergency bailout fund can inject money directly into struggling banks.

The fund will be able to inject a total of 60bn euros into troubled lenders but the bank's national government, and its lenders and depositors, will still have to share the burden of any rescue.

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EU shifts bailout burden to banks

Archangel Michael on the World’s Movement into the Golden Age, March 24, 2013 – Part 2/2

“… GW: Shifting to events that are taking place in Europe at this point in time, it seems that the events in Europe are reaching or about to hit a breaking point of some kind. Several leaders, including Nigel Farage and allegedly Russian Prime Minister Medvedev have suggested that people should be removing their money from their accounts as the cabal may attempt a last ditch grab for money.

Now, I know, and perhaps many know, that the current system is corrupt and that there will have to be a degree of change in the current system before people will be willing to embrace the new system.

I don’t wish this question to sound alarmist to people, but is what is happening now one of the final, if not the final, straw that will help expose the banking cabal and allow the new system to be implemented? Is this new system ready? Or is it already being implemented? Or is it still only limited to preparatory work?

AAM: No, it is already underway. It is already being implemented. And yes, we do not wish to sound alarmist either, and so we also wish people to know that their resources, what they think of as their money, for those who have saved and put their faith in banking systems, they will be protected to a certain extent. So do not think that you have need to run out and remove all your monies, or that it will be completely gone. But yes, this is the beginning of a transition.

The expression of the lack of faith in particularly the European banking system causes enormous disruption, more significant perhaps than anywhere else. And so yes, it does have a domino effect, but it is not one simply shutting down [the old system] and a new system emerging. It is coming into balance with the new emerging as the old simply fades away.

Is it a last ditch effort on the part of those who have clung to the old paradigm of the 3rd, what you call the cabal? Yes, it is. But it matters not, because it is not going to work for them. Seldom are things such as this situation so black and white. There is always room for free choice and free movement and adjustment.

But in this situation it is simply evolution and expansion. And the expansion of the new, of the new paradigm, of what you think of as Fifth-Dimensional financial systems does not allow for systems that are based on greed and theft and control — and unfairness, basic unfairness, usury.

So, it is rather clearly defined. You have an expression that you use on Earth, “Out with the old.” And this is one of those situations where it is, in fact, the truth.

GW: Okay. So, along the lines of the leadership, or at least some of the leadership of what’s taking place in the financial sector globally, it has been reported that the apartment of the IMF managing director Christine Lagarde was raided last week.

Was this an attempt to expose her as part of the banking cabal, or was it an attempt to stop her from fulfilling the reforms that she is allegedly trying to bring to the international banking system?

AAM: It was an attempt to gather information and perhaps even destroy documentation that she is trying to bring forth for the reform of the financial situation. It was an unsuccessful raid.

GW: Okay. So what I’m hearing in your answer, then, is that Christine Lagarde is working for, I guess, the forces of light to bring the greater change to the IMF. Am I correct?

AAM: Yes. This one has had a real turn-around. No, we do not ever categorize individuals or groups or people as light or dark. But this one has truly committed herself to reformation.

She sees and she has the experience very clearly of knowing what does not work. And therefore she has committed her mission, her purpose to this reformation.

GW: Okay. And could the same be said about the new US Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew? Is he on board with all the changes and working for the reformation as well with Lagarde?

AAM: He is an agent and an angel of change. He could not be simply on board. He is a moving force. ‘…‘’