Memo: State aid: Commissioner Kroes announces guidance for bank recapitalisation and guarantee schemes

'I am happy to announce that the Commission will very shortly issue guidance, permitting rapid assessment of the state aid compatibility of national recapitalisation or guarantee schemes, and of individual cases in which such schemes are applied,' European Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes stated at the press conference closing the EU's Council of Economics and Finance Ministers in Luxembourg on 7th October. 'That guidance will be based on our recent experience with state interventions, to rescue individual banks, as well as of a number of recently announced national schemes.'