The leaders of the eurozone finally agreed on a plan. It is an ambitious rescue plan for the banking system, as it should be, to stop the self-fulfilling prophecies that brought us to the brink of another Great Depression. But the plan should now also be made accept­able to European citizens.

In the next couple of weeks we shall see how effective these extreme measures are in reducing the spread between the euro interbank offered rate (Euribor) and the European Central Bank refinancing rate. If they only partly succeed in reassuring markets, there will be sizeable outlays to the banking sector. The insurance for the interbank market is potentially very costly – before the crisis the overnight volumes in many euro countries were of the order of 1-2 per cent of gross domestic product – while the bank recapitalisation plans commit so far up to 20 per cent of eurozone GDP. This share is bound to increase further as national plans are unveiled and countries are forced to raise capital to match the core tier one levels of UK banks (too bad that there was no cross-country co-ordination in this respect).