Selling Fortis to France is folly

Seven months after the collapse of the major Belgian bank Fortis, shareholders must decide whether the company should be sold to the French bank BNP Paribas. "It would not be dumb to say no", writes the daily De Morgen: "Belgium is practically the only country in this crisis to sell its largest bank to foreign interests. The government took great pains in seeing to that. Because after the Fortis judgement by the Court of Appeal, the authorities had sufficient opportunity to send BNP Paribas packing. Why didn't they? ... If this sale doesn't hurt them, nothing will. The Belgian economy needs financing to make it through the crisis. We'll have to wait and see how quickly Belgian companies get loans when they have to go knocking at French doors for their money. For large loans the decisions are sure to be made in Paris. ... Belgians are naive Europeans. Just when our neighbours are playing the nationalist card and doing everything to save their banks, we are selling our biggest bank in a fit of panic."

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