EU finance ministers believe there is "no risk of contagion" from the failure of US banks

"Calm!".

This is how eloquent the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, has been when asked what message he is sending out regarding the bankruptcy of the US banks Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and its possible transmission to the euro zone.

"We do not see a specific contagion risk," added the Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni.

Some words often repeated by various community ministers upon arrival in Brussels.

The Spanish first vice president, Nadia Calviño, has also done so, who, in addition, has demanded "maximum prudence" from the ECB before going ahead with the announced half-point interest rate hike scheduled for the authority's governing council meeting. money on Thursday.

The agenda planned this Monday in Brussels has suffered a serious setback with the financial storm that has caused the fall of two banks in the United States, its contagion to other regional entities in the country and its impact on the Stock Markets.

As euro zone finance heads arrived at the EU Council building, where they meet, everyone was trying to say that this time is different to what happened in 2007 and 2008, when the subprime mortgage crisis was

. until it became a financial crisis that exploded with the fall of Lehman Brothers.

What came next is in the economic history books: the Great Recession.

“We are closely monitoring the failure of Silicon Valley Bank in the United States.

The problems stem from Silicon Valley Bank's specific business model, and the picture here in Europe is very different.

In general, banks are fine.

We have greatly strengthened them in recent years.

[...] There is no direct exposure to Silicon Valley Bank”, stated the president of the Eurogroup, Pascal Donohoe, at the end of the meeting of the finance ministers of the euro zone.

The Irishman has also taken advantage of the "volatility" seen in the stock and capital markets this Monday to recall the importance of deepening the banking union in the euro zone, one of the issues that has barely advanced for years in the EU.

Commissioner Gentiloni, who appeared before the press together with Donohoe at the end of the meeting, has not detached himself from this argument, which he himself had already glossed upon entering the Council: "In the EU there is a very limited presence of this bank, so we do not see direct consequences.

We are closely following developments and have taken note of the decisive reaction of the US authorities."

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The ministers of the different euro countries have come to say the same thing, one after the other, as they arrived. "We are closely following the news in the United States, where the authorities have acted quickly", began the Spanish Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, when making the statements.

Next, she has pointed out that "the European banking system has a reinforced supervision system" and she has indicated that she is not aware that there is "a specific exposure" of any Spanish bank to the bankruptcies that have occurred on the other side of the Atlantic .

Implicitly, the Spanish minister has also come to ask the ECB not to raise interest rates on Thursday at her meeting of the Governing Council: "At this time we must all act with the utmost prudence", she declared, emphasizing a lot those last two words, to clinch below: "I think I'm being clear", he underlined.

The words of the Spanish Economy Minister also responded to a direct question about whether, given the bankruptcies of two entities in the United States and the tension that has unleashed in the markets, the ECB should not reconsider whether it is time to continue increasing the price of money.

Like Calviño, Gentiloni and Donohoe, also the French head of Finance, Bruno La Maire, has sought to put distance between his country's banks and what happened in the United States: “There is no connection, they are different situations.

When you look at the model of BNP Paribas, Société Générale and other French banks, it's a radically different model from Silicon Valley Bank."

Then his Belgian counterpart, Vincent Van Peteghem, took the baton, pointing out that European and Belgian regulations allow him to maintain confidence in the financial system.

Also the German Christian Lindner has maintained the same discourse.

Despite the fact that the German bank Commerzbank, which has a strong public participation in its capital, has been one of the most punished of the day, the German has said that for his country the bankruptcy of the American bank does not change anything.

"I have faith in the German economy," he added.

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