Brussels, 01/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is awaiting details from the Dutch government of the nationalisation of bank and insurance company SNS Reaal at a cost of €3.7 billion before deciding how it will impact on the Dutch budget and whether the buy-up complies with EU state aid rules.
Dutch Finance Minister and new head of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem says the nationalisation became inevitable because if SNS, the country's fourth biggest bank which is suffering from losses from its real estate subsidiary Property Finance, had gone bust, it would have jeopardised the stability of the Dutch financial system. The bank was nationalised through €2.2 billion in cash from the state, €700 million to ringfence the bank's real estate portfolio and €800 billion to write off a debt arising from a state aid plan of 2008 which came from the Dutch government itself. The EU's statistical office, Eurostat, will examine the bookkeeping for the buy-up, costs that may well increase the Dutch deficit to 3% of GDP this year according to the country's parliament. (FG/transl.fl)