Finland Firm on Collateral as Spain Aid Terms Discussed
Finland underlined its determination to get collateral in exchange for loans to
Spain’s banks as the Nordic country targets similar terms to those won last year on its contribution to
Greece’s second bailout.
“We have the requirements of collateral on the loans that are from the temporary vehicle,” Jukka Pekkarinen, director general at the Finnish
Finance Ministry in Helsinki, said in an interview in Oslo yesterday. “The details are still open, but the principle standpoint is the same” as in the case of Greece, he said.
Euro-area nations, after agreeing in Brussels last week to ease the terms of Spain’s bank bailout, plan to set up a single European banking supervisor as a first step toward enabling direct recapitalization of the region’s lenders. Finland is fighting its corner to reassure taxpayers they’re no worse off after euro-zone leaders decided Spain’s emergency loan of as much as 100 billion euros ($126 billion) won’t give contributor countries seniority.
“In negotiations everything can happen,” Pekkarinen said. “That is a kind of substitute for the seniority.”
Finland, one of only four AAA rated nations left in the 17- member euro area, threatened to hamper efforts to agree on a second bailout for Greece because of its collateral demands last year. The Nordic country was the only nation to negotiate security in exchange for loans to the temporary fund, or the European Financial Stability Facility, because the vehicle doesn’t give its creditors preferred status.
Finnish Voters
Voters in Finland, which kept its deficit within the European Union’s 3 percent threshold even as its economy contracted 8.4 percent in 2009, rewarded groups critical of Europe’s rescue mechanism in April 2011 elections, when the anti-euro “The Finns” party become the nation’s third-largest.
Inside the euro area, Finland shares its top
credit rating with
Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The other countries in the monetary union are
Austria,
Belgium, Cyprus,
Estonia, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta,
Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.
The Nordic country yesterday cast doubt on the ability of the permanent rescue fund, known as the European Stability Mechanism, to purchase bonds through the secondary market. Finland, which opposes such purchases, argues the process would require unanimity inside the euro area to be possible. It has yet to be decided whether the permanent ESM or the temporary EFSF will provide Spain’s loan.
No Unanimity
There exists no unanimous agreement on the bond purchases because Finland and the Netherlands reject the model, the Finnish government said in a report dated June 29 and presented yesterday by Prime Minister
Jyrki Katainen to the parliament’s Grand Committee in Helsinki.
Still, the rules of the ESM include an emergency voting procedure, which requires a qualified majority of 85 percent of the votes cast if the European Commission and the
European Central Bank see a threat to the economic and financial sustainability of the euro area. Finland’s parliament voted on June 21 to approve the bailout fund.
Sovereign bond purchases by the region’s permanent rescue fund could reduce pressure on rising yields, which have threatened to cut off Spain’s access to bond markets. The country’s borrowing costs declined after leaders of the 17 euro countries last week eased repayment rules for emergency loans to banks in the euro area’s fourth-biggest economy.
To contact the reporter on this story: Josiane Kremer in Oslo at
[email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tasneem Brogger at
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