Spanish Prime Minister meets with the country's bankers
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By h.b. - Oct 7, 2008 - 6:39 AM
It comes as the EU agrees to lift the guarantee for savers, and as Zapatero accepts an invitation to dine with Sarkozy in Paris.

The Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has accepted an invitation from the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, to meet with him on Friday to discuss the ongoing financial crisis. Much was made by the Spanish opposition of the lack of the invitation for Zapatero to the previous mini summit held in Paris last Saturday, and the consequent bad feeling this caused in the Moncloa Palace in Madrid.
The idea of Friday’s meeting is to put relations back on course at a dinner in the Elyse Palace.

No formal agreement came out of last weekend’s meeting in Paris, except for individual countries to coordinate their efforts, but that was soon thrown away on Monday when Angela Merkel announced Germany would be fully protecting private savers interests.

Yesterday evening Zapatero met with all the main bankers in Spain who all agreed on the solvency and solidity of the Spanish system. The Chairmen of the BBVA, Popular, Caja Madrid, La Caixa and Unicaja all attended, while the Banco Santander sent a top director. The bankers all described the meeting with the Prime Minister as ‘positive and fruitful’ as the occasion served to reinforce general confidence of citizens, savers and businessmen.

At the meeting it was agreed to increase the guarantee to savers, but the amount of the increase was not set.
Leader of the opposition Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, commented at this time that he would support any measure taken.

And then later agreement came at an EU level to increase savings guarantees to more than 40,000 €. A meeting of the EU Economy Ministers took the decision to ‘substantially increase’ the amount guaranteed for savers. Some reports say the increase will be to 100,000 €. Spanish Finance Minister, Pedro Solbes, said the amount would be clearly above 40,000 €.

Markets in Asia have opened lower again this morning, after another black Monday on Wall Street yesterday.

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