MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spain’s leading bank “one of the best” in the EU, says Rodriguez Zapatero

Rodriguez Zapatero forced the disclosure to contain uncertainties about the country’s financial system

Spanish banking giant Banco Santander SA (STD) had “one of the best” results from the stress tests conducted by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors, a spokesman for Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Thursday.

The spokesman said Rodriguez Zapatero had given the information to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron earlier Thursday at a bilateral meeting between the two leaders.

The CEBS is due to present the results of the stress test by the end of June or the beginning of July, a spokeswoman for the CEBS said earlier Thursday.

She declined to give any further information on the details that will be provided in the report.

Last year’s report only published an assessment that the European Union’s banks in general would be able to survive a sharper recession than that which occurred. It covered 22 banks representing 60% of EU banking assets.

The announcement follows the agreement reached at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels to disclose how banks perform on stress tests, seeking to show investors that the financial system can withstand shocks.

EU leaders rebuffed financial-industry executives’ concerns that publishing the results could undermine confidence in banks.

“We will do stress tests institution by institution and we’ll announce results, though I don’t know the details about how much exactly we announce, like if we release the answers to each question,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters.

“What’s important right now is that we have maximum transparency,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a separate briefing. “If you have something to hide, it would come out into the open in the long run anyway.”

Merkel said that EU leaders also agreed to pursue a banking levy and a financial transaction tax that apply worldwide, “to ensure fair burden-sharing and rein in systemic risks.” The EU will take those proposals to the Group of 20 summit in Canada later this month.