BBC News with Fiona MacDonald
European Union officials say just seven of 91 European banks have failed test of their financial strength. The checks were designed to see if individual banks needed to raise capital against future losses
in case of
a new recession. Our economics correspondent Andrew Walker reports.
The stress tests, as they are called, looked at what would happen to European banks if there were a renewed recession and a further worsening of the government debt crisis.
The question was whether their capital, a kind of financial
cushion
, would fall below a particular
threshold
. Seven have failed their test - five savings banks in Spain, a German property market lender and one Greek bank. No large bank has failed. European leaders hope the test will
restore
confidence in the banks. But there are already questions about whether they were
stringent
enough.
A court in the Netherlands has found a multinational company, Trafigura, guilty of illegally exporting toxic waste from the European Union to Africa. The company was fined more than a million dollars for shipping waste to Ivory Coast where it was dumped around the largest city Abidjan. Tens of thousands of people fell ill,
overwhelm
ing the city's medical facilities. Trafigura said it was disappointed and would study a ruling with a view to appeal.
The environmental campaign group Greenpeace said the Dutch court decision was a strong warning that illegal waste exports would not go unpunished.