Authored by Don Quijones via WolfStreet.com, 

If the ECB scales back stimulus, banks face even greater risk of collapse. But now there’s a new solution

Events are moving so fast in Europe these days, it’s almost impossible to keep up. While much of the attention is being hogged by political developments, including the election in the Netherlands, Reuters published a report warning that the European banking sector may face even higher bad loan risks if the ECB begins to scale back its monetary stimulus programs, something it has already begun, albeit extremely tentatively.

The total stock of non-performing loans (NPL) in the EU is estimated at over €1 trillion, or 5.4% of total loans, a ratio three times higher than in other major regions of the world.

On a country-by-country basis, things look even scarier. Currently 10 (out of 28) EU countries have an NPL ratio above 10% (orders of magnitude higher than what is generally considered safe). And among Eurozone countries, where the ECB’s monetary policies have direct impact, there are these NPL stalwarts:

• Ireland: 15.8%
• Italy: 16.6%
• Portugal: 19.2%
• Slovenia: 19.7%
• Greece: 46.6%
• Cyprus: 49%

That bears repeating: in Greece and Cyprus, two of the Eurozone’s most bailed out economies, virtually half of all the bank loans are toxic.

Then there’s Italy, whose €350 billion of NPLs account for roughly a third of Europe’s entire bad debt stock. Italy’s government and financial sector have spent the last year and a half failing spectacularly to come up with a solution to the problem. The two “bad bank” funds they created to help clean up the banks’ toxic balance sheets, Atlante I and Atlante II, are the financial equivalent of bringing a butter knife to a machete fight. So underfunded are they, they even strugggled to hold aloft smaller, regional Italian banks like Veneto Banca and Popolare di Vicenza, which are now pleading for a bailout from Rome, which in turn is pleading for clemency from Brussels.

What little funds Atlante I and Atlante II have left are hemorrhaging value as the “assets” they’ve been used to buy up, invariably at prices that were way too high (often at over 40 cents on the euro), continue to deteriorate. The recent decision of Italy’s two biggest banks, Unicredit and Intesa Sao Paolo, to significantly write down their investment in Atlante is almost certain to discourage the private sector from pumping fresh funds into bailing out weaker banks.

Which means someone else must step in, and soon. And that someone is almost certain to be the European taxpayer.

In February ECB Vice President Vitor Constancio called for the creation of a whole new class of government-backed “bad banks” to help buy some of the €1 trillion of bad loans putrefying on bank balance sheets. Constancio’s idea bore a striking resemblance to a formal proposal put forward by the European Banking Authority (EBA) for the creation of a massive EU-wide bad bank that, in the words of EBA president Andrea Enria, would “make it much easier to achieve critical mass and to create a well functioning market for (impaired) assets.”

Here’s how it would work, according to Enria (emphasis added):

The banks would sell their non-performing loans to the asset management company at a price reflecting the real economic value of the loans, which is likely to be below the book value, but above the market price currently prevailing in illiquid markets. So the banks will likely have to take additional losses.

The asset manager would then have three years to sell those assets to private investors. There would be a guarantee from the member state of each bank transferring assets to the asset management company, underpinned by warrants on each bank’s equity. This would protect the asset management company from future losses if the final sale price is below the initial transfer price.

One of the biggest advantages of launching an EU-wide bad bank is that it would avoid the sort of public “resistance” that would occur if it was done at a national level, says Enria. Italian lenders would presumably be able to continuing pricing bad loans at or around 40 cents on the euro on average, even though their real value — i.e. the current value priced by the market — is often much lower. The difference between the market price, if any, and the price the banks end up receiving for their bad debt will be covered by Europe’s taxpayers.

If given the green light, the scheme would pave the way to the biggest one-off bail out of European banks in history. It would be Euro-TARP on angel dust, with even fewer checks and balances and much less likelihood of ever recovering taxpayer funds. According to a banker source cited by Reuters, while Germany has not yet endorsed the EBA plan, the EU documents describe the development of a secondary market for NPLs as a priority. According to Enria, the EBA hopes to finalize matters “at the European level” in the Spring.

The documents also include proposals for a wider “restructuring of banking sectors” as states address the NPLs problem. This “could lead to mergers among EU banks after they offload their bad loans,” a banking industry official said.

In other words, EU taxpayers would have to spend potentially hundreds of billions of euros saving yet more banks from the consequences of their own acts and bail out their bondholders and potentially their stockholders too, with funds desperately needed in other areas. Those banks, once saved and their balance sheets cleansed, would then be handed on a platter to much bigger banks. In return, taxpayers would end up with an even more concentrated, consolidated, interconnected financial system that is even more prone to abuse, corruption, and excess.

The ECB’s policy isn’t about creating inflation but about keeping a financial system and a currency union from collapsing upon each other. Read…  ECB Trapped in its Own “Doom Loop” as Inflation Surges

Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Those who support the idea of globalism and strive for closer European integration believe the results of the Dutch election indicate the tide has been stemmed, with Eurosceptics and «populist» forces on the defensive. The buck stops here. This is the end of domino effect. The reshaping of Europe has been prevented. The pro-NATO, pro-EU establishment elites are to see glory days again.

Is it really so if you get to the bottom of it?

The future of Europe remains to be at stake, including the UK, Germany and France. Will the concept of United Europe exist in one form or another? Will Scotland stay in the United Kingdom? Will Germany and France distance themselves from the United States? Some of these questions could be answered sooner than expected.

This year may become a turning point with the votes to take place in Germany, France and, probably, Italy. In a month, France will have a new president and Germans will have a new parliament elected in September. The example of the Netherlands may have little influence on the votes.

Let’s look at the facts. Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom made a substantial gain. It won 20 seats (of 150) according to the preliminary results, which is 5 seats more than in the previous election in 2012. The two governing parties got half as many seats as at the last election in 2012. The prime minister’s Party for Freedom and Democracy lost 8 seats and its coalition partner, the Labor Party (PvdA), lost 29 – an impressive defeat!

Actually, it’s a significant loss for those who ruled the country and a big gain (not big enough but still) for the right wing Eurosceptics led by Wilders. Many key points of the Party for Freedom’s program were «borrowed» by PM Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and Christian Democrats. The popularity was raised due to the tough stance taken in the conflict with Turkey – something Wilders had been calling for. Actually, Prime Minister Rutte was riding to power on a wave of anti-migrant, anti-Islam sentiments.

The Sybrand Buma’s Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) is all but certain to participate in the next governing coalition with 19 seats won (12, 5%) – an increase of 6 seats. The party has gained ground by adopting a tough line similar to Rutte’s on immigration, adding a focus on communal values and a touch of nationalism to tap voter concerns about Dutch identity. It has proposed introducing singing the national anthem in schools and mandatory community service. According to Sybrand Buma, Her Majesty Queen Máxima should renounce her Argentine citizenship (she was born in Buenos Aires). The CDA presence in government would ensure a conservative stamp on any coalition.

Media rarely mention the fact that another right wing anti-EU and anti-migrants party – the Forum for Democracy – took part in its first election to win 2 seats (1,8%) – not a bad start for a party created only in September 2016. It calls for restoring ties with Russia among other things.

The main result is opposite to what it appears to be at first glance. The outcome of the Dutch election conforms to the current trend – Euroscepticism is on the rise across Europe. The winning forces are often called populist but in reality they are anti-establishment movements which emerged as a result of voters being fed up with left or right windbags. People want them gone and the entire political landscape in Europe fundamentally changed.

Socialists have few chances in France and the chances of Angela Merkel becoming Chancellor again are dim enough. Martin Schultz is a serious rival to reckon with.

Newly founded or old anti-establishment parties continue to make gains. Perhaps not today, but they will come to power. In a couple of months Marine Le Pen may become President of France to radically reform European politics. Even if she loses, Le Pen will remain the most popular politician in the country who is able to win the presidential election in 2022. Artificial creations designed by experts for a particular task, like Emmanuel Macron, for instance, can’t stop it. Nothing can prevent the new wave of politicians from coming to power.

The Dutch election has not changed anything. It has failed to turn the tide. The EU continues to fall apart. The European integration will never be the same. More and more EU members challenge the existing pattern.

The March 16 vote in the Netherlands is far from being a harbinger of Eurosceptics’ movements fading away. Quite to the contrary, it has confirmed the trend – the Old Continent is going through changes. We’ll never have the EU we once knew. The process may temporarily slow down but it’s too late to stop it.

Two days after Syria claimed it had shot down an Israel jet over its territory on Friday morning, an incident Israel denied even if it admitted violating Syria’s sovereign airspace by engaging in an air raid near Palmyra, the Israeli defense minister threatened to destroy Syrian air defenses after they shot (but allegedly did not down) at Israeli warplanes, which violated Syrian airspace and bombed targets on Syrian soil.

“Next time, if the Syrian aerial defense apparatus acts against our planes, we will destroy it,” Avigdor Lieberman told Israeli Public Radio on Sunday, in a statement which seemed to lend credence to the Syrian contention that it had taken down an Israel jet.

It was not exactly clear why Israel was so offended by Syria “acting against” its planes which were located above Syrian airspace at the time of shooting. In any case he warned that “we won’t hesitate. Israel’s security is above everything else; there will be no compromise.”

An Israeli F-15 fighter jet

The minister was referring to the previously reported morning raid of the Israeli Air Force, the latest of several reported over the past few years, in which Israel claimed it targeted weapons bound for the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah. Israel says it has to protect itself from advanced weapons which the militants try to obtain from the Syrian government. Syria shot surface-to-air S-200 missiles at the Israeli planes as they were flying back from the night mission. As noted above, Damascus claims it shot down one of the planes, although Israel still denies.

The Israeli media said one of the Syrian missiles was intercepted by Israel’s Arrow air defense system. According to RT, it was the first time Israel officials have confirmed combat use of the advanced anti-missiles, which are originally meant to intercept heavy long-range ballistic missiles. The Israeli military is investigating whether the decision to fire Arrow interceptors against the Syrian anti-aircraft missiles was justified, according to Haaretz.

The former prime minister and defense minister, Ehud Barak, said Saturday that the involvement of the system forced Israel to acknowledge cross-border military activity. “It could be that with more thorough thought, it wasn’t worth firing,” Barak said at a community lecture in Be’er Sheva. “We have usually tended to reserve what would be called ‘room for denial’ for Syrian President [Bashar] Assad,” he added.

While Israeli acknowledgment of an intervention in Syria is rare, it is not unprecedented. Last April, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed for the first time that an attack on dozens of Hezbollah targets in Syria was indeed conducted by Israeli warplanes, as speculated by the media.

And, perhaps to give Syria just the opportunity to “provoke” it, on Monday morning, according to several media reports Israel has again bombed a Hezbollah convoy in Syria. It was unclear as of publication time if Syria had retaliated