Late on Sunday, Italy passed a decree that will sell the good part of two banks (Popolare di Vicenza and Veneto Banca) to Intesa, Italy’s second-largest and best-capitalized bank. Intesa said last week that it would be willing to buy the best assets for a token price of €1 as long as the government assumed responsibility for liquidating the banks’ large portfolio of sour loans. As a result, Italy said it would commit as much as €17 billion in taxpayer funds to clean up the two failed "Veneto" banks in one of Italy's wealthiest regions and support the takeover of their good assets by Intesa Sanpaolo SpA for a token amount. After an emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday, Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said the Italian government will provide Milan-based Intesa with about €5.2 billion euros to allow it to take on Banca Popolare di Vicenza SpA and Veneto Banca SpA assets without hurting capital ratios, The European Commission, in a separate statement, said it approved the plan for the two banks and that it is in-line with state-aid rules.
The funny thing is that the main Italian newspapers are distracted by local elections and mention this fact only slightly.
If we divide €17 billions by the total number of effective Italian taxpayers (31M) we got a bill of €548 per taxpayer. This would be like any taxpayer offers daily for a year 2 coffees (€0.75x2 = €1.5) to these bankers.