The European Central Bank (ECB) extended its recommendation for European banks to withhold the payment of dividends until, at least, 1 January 2021.
This might seem like a logical step in the middle of one of the biggest crisis of the century, in an attempt to keep the force of financial establishments expected to absorb the losses caused by the inevitable recession and finance the economic relaunch of Europe intact. This measure, however, has also brought about a series of questions about how banks have slowly started to work as extensions of EU-States.
For starters, it raises the question whether these measures are not the first step towards the nationalisation the banks and financial enterprises throughout Europe.
Click here for the original article (in French) by Financial analyst François Vidal from Les Echos