Fifteen years ago today, the Eurozone Heads of State and Government agreed on what was then sold as a necessity: the European bank recapitalization plan. The so-called banking package forced the big banks to strengthen capital and provided for public guarantees so that they could access financing. The European Banking Authority estimated the hole in the banks at 106,000 million euros. All that plan, according to the official language, served to “restore the confidence of the markets”. Yeh! That of the citizens, no. Then he already wrote that if there was money to guarantee the bank, there was also money for schools and public services. But I was in the minority.
The figures of that year, according to the State Aid report of the European Commission, give the measure of the asymmetry: throughout 2011, the member states injected 31,700 million euros in bank recapitalization – 0.25% of the European GDP–, of which 16,500 in Ireland, 8,500 in Spain and 3,600 in Germany. Behind, more than half a billion in public guarantees. On the other hand, austerity was imposed on the citizens. No endorsement
Three years later, the bill hits the streets. The historic protests that are shaking France, born in institutes, are the result of government indifference. Some of us see it for what it is: the unilateral breaking of the social contract. It’s funny: governments know how to be fast and creative when it comes to shielding the banks, but slow and tight-lipped when it comes to endowment of schools.
And Andorra? nothing A country with only three banks, which manage more than 110,000 million euros, and no public financial counterpower. We have created a state agency to close down failing banks, but in fifteen years no one has seriously proposed to create a public bank or, even better, a cooperative bank.
Because the third way exists and works. In the Italian Trentino, a network of cooperative rural banks has been operating for more than a century: one member, one vote; profits, which return to the territory. There are no shareholders taking anything away. In June 2025, the province of Trento approved the protocol to finance the sustainability and ecological transition of local companies, to which the rural banks adhered. I already wrote it in 2011: “A bank, in short, that knows how to help each other”. How many more years do we have to wait?
