Royal Bank of Scotland : State aid : case study

Cases of State aid directed at financial institutions were and are relatively frequent in times of crisis. Nevertheless, the bulk of aid taxpayer tunded aid during the harsh times commencing in 2008 in Europe has forced European decision-making entities to re-define the patterns of support and to reduce public commitments as well as to pass them on to shareholders, unsecured creditors and big depositors. The aim of this article is to indicate that despite such a qualitative shift there is and will be considerable room for manoeuvre for national authorities to pump ad ditional public funds into failing banks thought to be systemically important. To bring up a range of different forms of a State support, the example of the British Royal Bank of Scotland is recalled and described. The intention of the author is to stipulate the circumstances where merely an “internal” rescue will not do, even after the creation of the Single Resolution Fund (the body the United Kingdom is not expected to join). And, in some externalities, national authorities would have the temptation to circumvent European law