EU Sees Coordinated Action on Bank Capital

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
October 06, 2011, 6:34 AM EDT By Jones Hayden

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The European Commission has proposed coordinated action to recapitalize the region’s banks, President Jose Barroso said.

“We are now proposing to the member states to have a coordinated action to recapitalize banks and so to get rid of toxic assets that they may have,” Barroso said today in a question-and-answer session broadcast on YouTube World View.

Barroso said governments have provided “at least 500 billion euros directly to support the banks” since 2008. “If you count with the guarantees, it’s more than 1 trillion euros. And if you add all the measures taken to help the real economy, it’s more than 4 trillion euros, so it’s really a huge amount of money,” he said.

Those funds come ultimately “from the taxpayers,” Barroso said, so “it’s only fair now to ask the banking sector to give a contribution back to society.” He said he will push for a global financial-transactions tax at the Group of 20 nations.

Preventing business from going to other regions “is the reason to have it a global tax,” Barroso said. “That’s why at the G-20 we are going to push for having a global tax, but if there is no agreement to have it at a global level, at least someone has to start and why not start it here in Europe.”

--Editor: Patrick G. Henry

To contact the reporter on this story: Jones Hayden in Brussels at jhayden1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net

Technology

News

Posted in: action,Capital,Coordinated