Bundesbank says Italian and Spanish banks still hooked on home state debt -- Telegraph Blogs

``Italian banks have increased their holdings of Italian public debt from €240bn to €415bn since November 2011 (+ 73pc). Spanish banks have raised their holdings of Spanish debt €166bn to €299. (+81pc). Ditto Irish banks, up 60pc; and Portuguese banks, up 51pc. The EU summit pledge made in June 2012 to end this dangerous and incestuous linkage has come to little. As the Buba report said testily, "the mutual dependency of the banks and the state sector has grown most in those countries where the links were already particularly high at the start."