Belgium, France and Luxembourg are to raise the volume of state guarantees placed behind the remnants of failed banking group Dexia.
The guarantees will go from €45 billion to 55 billion, the European Commission said today.
The decision was taken during talks in Brussels on Tuesday between the Belgian and French finance ministers, Steven Vanackere and Pierre Moscovici, and communicated to the Commission.
After Belgian daily Le Soir revealed the new figure, a spokesman for EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said the Brussels authorities had been notified and were now studying the case.
Only last week, Almunia expressed doubts whether even the existing level of state aid would turn out to be legal.
Given those reservations, the Commission last Thursday extended by four months an investigation into an "orderly resolution plan" for Dexia, and prolonged temporary approval for the €45 billion of guarantees needed to re-finance the group.
First bailed out in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis, Dexia could not cope with the turmoil of the euro zone debt quagmire and in October the three countries stepped in to wind up the bank.
Belgium is responsible for the lion's share of the operation, putting up 60.5% of the financial guarantees as against 36.5% from France and 3.0% from Luxembourg.
European banks are back in the spotlight with a vicious circle of sovereign and banking debt taking a severe turn for the worse with major problems in Spain and EU leaders forced to talk of creating a eurozone banking union complete with plans for lenders to prepare their own demise.
