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Spain's Bankia to ask for more state aid. By CIARAN GILES The board of Bankia, the large Spanish bank that was taken over by the government, met Friday to discuss a restructuring plan that will include a request for more state aid, bolstering calls for a coordinated relief blueprint for Europe's fragile financial sector.

Trading in shares of Bankia, the country's fourth-largest lender, were suspended Friday while its board determined how much new aid it needs. The bank's shares have whipped about violently in recent weeks on fears it could succumb to the massive losses it has built up in the country's collapsed real estate sector. The Spanish government said this week it would pump at least (EURO)9 billion ($11 billion) into the lender but added that more would be available if needed. "I don't know if the figures will be greater or smaller than those being talked about because I am not responsible for the information that is coming out," said Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria at a weekly government press conference.

News Headlines. US News Page 1 of 3 | Next PageShow Entire Article Spanish Banks May Need More Government Cash: S&P CNBC.com | May 23, 2012 | 12:36 PM EDT Spanish banks are likely to need more money from the government to make sure they are well capitalized, Moritz Kraemer, head of European Sovereign ratings at S&P, told CNBC on Wednesday.

Late on Monday, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) warned that under a worst-case scenario, Spain's bank losses could hit 260 billion euros ($331.7 billion), with the majority of the losses stemming from commercial real estate loans. "Clearly what some of the Spanish banks have on their balance sheets are assets which are losing in value pretty much every month which is the huge housing stock that has been built over the last decade," Kraemer said. Drought Hits Spain's Wheat Crop. Moody's Warns Spain It Will Downgrade "More Than 21" Spanish Banks - Expansion. Insane in Spain. Back from travel! (But more crazy travel next week) So, the euro crisis is risk on again.

And this time it’s centered on Spain — which in a way is a good thing, because now the essential craziness of the orthodox German-inspired diagnosis of the crisis is on full display. For this is really, really not about fiscal irresponsibility. Just as a reminder, on the eve of the crisis Spain seemed to be a fiscal paragon: What happened to Spain was a housing bubble — fueled, to an important degree, by lending from German banks — that burst, taking the economy down with it. And the policy response is supposed to be even more austerity, with the European Central Bank, natch, obsessing over inflation — and officials claiming that the incredibly foolish rate hike last year was actually something to be proud of. I’m really starting to think that we’re heading for a crackup of the whole system. Ibex Salad: Another rerun. We (typically) remain a little puzzled by the persistence of predictions of massive bailouts of Spain and its banks - the main proof of which (also typically) being that everyone else is saying it.

Apparently, particularly taking into account that the current bond market stresses that seem to have engendered all this took hold immediately following the second instalment of the ECB's 3-year LTRO, the equity markets do not seem to be actually following the party line. It wouldn't be the first time. This especially became evident at some point in March (when the Tesoro updates its stats) that Spanish banks had doubled their exposure to their sovereign's debt courtesy of the ECB - from 70 to over 140 billion euros.

Net issuance plus foreign sales, by the way, totalling 90 billion were almost perfectly offset by bank purchases plus those by government agencies - primarily Social Security, we imagine. What really went down in spain….corruption and collusion fuelled an epic asset bubble. Argentine move to seize YPF scuppers Sinopec deal.