The BBVA Public Purchasing Offer (EPP) for the acquisition of control of Sabadell has created the noise due to its economic and political dimension. BBVA would become the second largest bank in the Spanish State, only behind the Santander bank, and would be the top ten largest European banks. The main media have taken the lead in analysing the consequences of the so-called opilla (impulsive PPE), which without the consent of the company management directly proposed the trade to the shareholders, and have led their hands to the head, as the citizen mortgage and the credits of the companies would be handled by a few incandescent.

But the banking concentration is not something sent from the sky by San Pedro, but it is a beast that since the crisis of 2008 is becoming fatter in Europe.

BBVA received its wings from Bilbao and Vizcaya to wider business niches in Madrid and internationally, scarcely leaving its social headquarters in our lands, as a symbolic witness to the Basque roots of Neguri. In the case of Sabadell, the referendum on 1 October 2017 changed its registered office to Alicante, which won 6% on the stock market, but it seems that it is more linked to companies in the Catalan countries, which has made the victim of this film into a chinche, even though the catches he has eaten on his way are not much less.

The impact that BBVA has had in Euskal Herria has nothing to do with the attention that the media of the Catalan countries have given to the issue. It is not easy to know why BBVA announced its intention to buy Sabadell on the eve of the Catalan elections, but this has accused all parties, employers and governments of the operation.

At Vilaweb we can read a harsh editorial by director Vicent Partal. The complaints of Josep Oliu, head of Sabadell, are “crocodile cynical tears”, according to Partal, moving his attitude with the referendum to the quotation, and is surprised by the homogeneous discourse that has been opened from Junts to the PP to protect the Alicante bank.

In the same digital newspaper, Di Goula, a veteran journalist and economist with extensive experience in La Joroba, has published an analysis with the military title El BBVA treu l’artilleria pesant (BBVA has pulled out heavy artillery): “It is clear that it is a turning point in the financial world”, he acknowledged, but has not made clareté in the shareholders. 90% of Sabadell’s shares are free float in finance jargon, that is, they are not controlled – although many are in the hands of BlackRock, Vanguard, Norges… – and no one knows if those shareholders willing to receive a strong free loving hug to earn four money on the stock market.

Attention, systemic risk

The banking concentration that would result from the purchase of Sabadell is not surprising to some. One of them is Joan Ramón Sanchís, director of the Chair of Economics for Social Welfare at the University of Valencia and author of eleven critical books on financial institutions, among them is it possible a world without banks? (Is a world without banks possible? ).

Sanchís has been warning for years about the social risks of the process of fusion and fattening of banks that is happening. In his Parlem d’Economia channel on Youtube, in an eight-minute video recorded in the bedroom of the house, he clearly summarizes, for the humble streets, the damage that the merger between BBVA and Sabadell would cause: “I am boring, boring at all, because I have spoken for many years about the serious consequences that the mergers of the big banks, which the economist has complained about. Bank mergers have long been carried out, which has had very negative effects, such as customer abuse, but no one has opposed it.” The anguish generated by BBVA’s PPE to Sabadell has now become curious.

Sanchís says that mergers diminish competition between banks, but above all he has to alert us to the “systemic risk” that this causes: “The bank becomes so big that when a crisis occurs you cannot drop and you have to inject public money.” As in 2008. Then, the state increases public debt because it says that it “has an obligation” to finance bank losses – because it wants to socialize – and of course, the beast’s mouth devours all the money it was to maintain public services.

Another issue that can affect citizens is the duplication of branches. We also learned very well what is behind euphemisms such as the “restructuring” of the banking team with the 2008 crisis, but just in case Sanchís reminds us: “closing offices and destroying jobs”.

In addition, concentration increases the power of banks: “Their trading capacity increases with the customer and they can use financial exclusion,” he says. Small businesses have greater difficulties in obtaining credit, and banks also tighten the conditions for family mortgages, etc. Where does that take us? In a word no, but in three: committees, abuses, fraud.

Champions praying

Spanish Minister of Economy, Carlos Body, travelled to Brussels after the launch of the EEP against Sabadell by BBVA. The Minister explained to the Head of Inspectors of the European Central Bank (ECB) the “concerns” raised by the banking concentration on the Government of Spain. It does not seem that the citizens' mortgage or the conditions of the cashier's employee prevent him from sleeping more than political calculations.

The ECB’s response is a great mutis. What more could one expect from an organization that attentively applauds the creation of giant banks? The ECB’s technical regulators believe that banks should have sufficient solvency to withstand a crisis.

Frankfurt has been promoting banking convergence for years, and better if they are cross-border, in creating “European champions”. In finance, energy, telecommunications, even in microchip generation mega-workshops, the idea is that the European Union needs food corporations to compete in parallel with the global powers. Urinate further.

Spain is at the forefront of the cart of banking concentration – in 2008 there were 55 banks across the state, fifteen years later, only 9 – and they go further behind. In the French state, for example, rumors about the wedding between the giants BNP and Société Génerale have not been silenced. Of the 100 largest banks in the world, 37 are on this continent.

In the last financial crisis, the global phenomenon too big to fail (too big to drop it) preceded the savings of citizens and the last cents of public coffers. But the authorities have not learned much from this cataclysm, even as soon as.