Antonio López-Istúriz, the sec gen of the European PP party party (the MEP lot) has said that he reckons Spain’s banks need at least 100 billion euros.
He was quick to add that this is not a “bail out” but simply a “loan”.
He told TVE that since the European bank fund has some 240 billion euros, 100 billion shouldn’t be too much of a shock, which is one way of looking at things.
The figure is a tad more than that mentioned yesterday by Emilio Botón, head of Santander, who reckons Spain only needs about 40 billion.
It would be nice if people stopped writing down figures on the backs of envelopes and actually started to use a calculator, but still.
This latest hint of the need for a huge cheque comes a day after the PP deputy who suggested Spain needed to start planning for a national bailout was fired from his position as subdirector of some committee of the FROB bank fund for daring to suggest such a thing.