It’s almost habit-forming. Every few years, the governments of Belgium, France and Luxembourg gather around a table to thrash out how to save a crippled regional financial services group. Fortis, Dexia and, following last month’s collapse, Dexia again. Initially, they made good progress, agreeing the sale of its Luxembourg private bank, its Belgian retail bank and its municipal lending arm. HSBC could buy its Turkish retail bank. Now the three-way charade appears to be boiling down to a dispute over government debt guarantees.
這幾乎已形成一種習慣。每隔幾年，比利時，法國和盧森堡三國政府就會聚集在桌邊，開會研討該如何拯救一個陷入困境的區域性金融服務集團。先是富通(Fortis)，接下來是德克夏(Dexia)，繼上個月的突發危機後，又再次輪到德克夏。最初，他們進展良好，同意出售該銀行在盧森堡的私人銀行業務、在比利時的零售銀行業務以及市政貸款業務。滙豐銀行(HSBC)則可以收購其位於土耳其的零售銀行。但這個三方參與的遊戲，似乎正糾結於一場有關政府債務擔保的糾紛。