The first involved injecting € billion worth of public money into the banking system and the second involved resolving banks without providing a euro of public money. In terms of acting in the public interest, the second is much better. Mergers are being suggested as a solution to the lack of profitability.
Yet, at the same time, supervisors are acknowledging that mergers between domestic banks offer few synergies. And cross-border operations are full of regulatory obstacles, so what’s the solution? To the extent that it helps to reduce excess capacity, consolidation is positive from the point of view of cost structure. We also need to maintain a competitive environment.