Perhaps it was too late in the evening for the Spanish government or the Bank of Spain to put themselves together and show up after Fitch Ratings announced on Tuesday it had downgraded six major banks of the country, while Standard & Poor's confirmed that the whole of Spain's financial system had been placed on level 4, from group 3, in the agency's Banking Industry Country Risk Assessment ranking.
Will the Spanish authorities offer the markets any explanation before they open on Wednesday? Will they take more inestimable time to structure a message that could grab any trust left and build up on it with a credible plan? How come they said on September 30 that
“the recapitalisation process to comply with the requirements of Royal Decree-1 2/211 is completed” [this is the how to get your love girlfriend back more… .es/webbde/en/secciones/prensa/Notas_Informativ/anoactual/presbe2011_37e.pdf” target=”_blank”>complete press release]
when one of the principal goals was to calm misapprehensions from investors and risk agencies?
Or is it the case that both the Moncloa (the Spanish president's official residence) and the Bank of Spain believe these latest hits were already in most market participants' minds and there is no need for further comment? Anyway, we can't wait to hear from them.
For starters, though, here you are what was said last Friday October 7 on the subject, in a different context:
“Spokesman Minister José Blanco has stressed in a press conference after today's cabinet meeting that not a single euro of taxpayers will be spent in the cleaning up of the banking system. The Spokesman Minister has said that, in this reform of our financial institutions, the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will ensure that not a single euro from the taxpayer's will go into the financial system. That is, the cost of recapitalisation of financial institutions will be assumed by all Spanish banks and not by using money from the citizens' pockets, said Jose Blanco.”
