COMMENTARY
I am sorry ... but I cannot understand why ordinary people should have to 'pay up' for the incompetence of well paid bankers, politicans and financial experts. I cannot understand how the banks can keep talking about the need to pay huge salaries and bonuses to their staff when at the end of the day the staff produce financial results for society that are ... simply put ... pathetic.

Clearly Europe has a problem ... rule of law is important ... but in Europe there are 17 separate sets of law each with its own dynamic, and in the end this means that rule of law will be supplemented by something else, and likely something that is very messy.

TO BE COMPLETED
Peter Burgess

Banks under pressure in Europe crisis, pushed to raise capital, take Greek losses

Big banks found themselves under pressure in Europe’s debt crisis Saturday, with finance chiefs pushing them to raise billions of euros in capital and accept huge losses on Greek bonds they hold.

The continent’s biggest financial institutions were at the center of talks as leaders entered marathon negotiations in Brussels, at the end of which they have promised to present a comprehensive plan to take Europe out of its crippling debt crisis.

IMAGE Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, left, speaks with ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet during a meeting of EU finance ministers at the EU Council building in Brussels on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011. Eurozone finance ministers said Saturday they have agreed that banks should accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, with a new report suggesting that writedowns of up to 60 percent may be necessary. Virginia Mayo / Associated Press

“Between now and Wednesday we have to find a solution, a structural solution, an ambitious solution and a definitive solution,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy said as he arrived in Brussels. “There’s no other choice.”

In addition to new financing for Greece, leaders want to make the banking sector fit to sustain worsening market turmoil and turn their bailout fund into a strong safety net that will stop big economies like Italy and Spain from falling into the same debt trap that has already snapped Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

But before the final deadline on Wednesday, they have to overcome many obstacles.

On Saturday, the finance ministers of the 27-country European Union decided to force the bloc’s biggest banks to substantially increase their capital buffers — an important move to ensure that they are strong enough to withstand the panic that a steep cut to Greece’s debt could trigger on financial markets.

A European official said the new capital rules would force banks to raise just over €100 billion ($140 billion), but finance ministers did not provide details on their decision. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because it had been agreed to let leaders unveil the deal at their first summit Sunday.

“We have made real progress and have come to important decisions on strengthening European banks,” George Osborne, the U.K.’s chancellor of the exchequer, said as he left Saturday’s meeting.

The deal on banks was likely to be the only major breakthrough ready to announce on Sunday, leaving many important decisions and negotiations to be completed by Wednesday night.

On Friday, the first day of the marathon talks, the finance ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro — and which have found themselves at the center of the crisis because of the currency they share — agreed to demand Greece’s private creditors take big losses on their bondholdings.

But they still have get the banks to come along and convince them that the cuts are the best way to ensure that Athens can eventually repay its remaining debts.

The picture in Greece, whose troubles kicked off the crisis almost two years ago, is bleaker than ever. A new report from Athens’ international debt inspectors — the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund — proved that a preliminary deal for a second package of rescue loans reached in July is already obsolete.

That plan would have seen banks and other private investors take losses of some 21 percent on their Greek bond holdings, while the eurozone and the IMF were to provide an extra €109 billion ($150 billion) in bailout loans.