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10/24/13

The euro zone: Europe’s other debt crisis - too many zombie firms and overindebted households

Fifteen months ago, in July 2012, Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), promised to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the single currency. Although the bond-buying scheme set up to fulfil that pledge has never been tested, yields on sovereign bonds have fallen. The euro mess has morphed from an acute crisis into a chronic one.

This week Mr Draghi launched what could become the second big turning-point in the euro saga: an inspection of the balance-sheets of the region’s 128 biggest banks which the ECB will supervise from late 2014. As part of its “asset-quality review”, ECB officials, along with outside experts, will start peering into the banks’ balance-sheets and impose common standards for loan quality (see article). This process is supposed to find out which banks are viable now, which will need more capital and which should just be closed down.

Mr Draghi should be tough. The euro zone’s politicians, even in supposedly prudent Germany, have been reluctant to look too deeply into banks’ balance-sheets, let alone to force them to clean themselves up. There are certainly questions to be asked about all the government bonds that the banks have bought in recent years. But the main dodgy assets that have been swept under the European carpet are private: bad loans made to households and companies.

Read more: The euro zone: Europe’s other debt crisis | The Economist

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