Financial markets must integrate

Ireland must now come to terms with drastic budget cuts but if the financial markets had been integrated sooner the collapse of its banking system could have been prevented, the left-liberal daily La Repubblica writes: "The major Irish banks no longer look so big when you look at them in the context of the gross domestic product of the Eurozone. In the face of the crisis the process of integrating Europe's financial markets and state aid must be continued. The citizens and governments see this as renouncing their national independence, but this is by no means the case. It is a way of freeing themselves of the dictatorship of the big banks and financial institutions. Integration turns giants into dwarves and furnishes the decision makers with the means to protect themselves against the financial institutions' more or less explicit attempts at blackmail. Moreover integration facilitates the kind of financial intervention that benefits the real economy and jobs rather than the financial institutions."

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