RBS admits EU sale plan

The Royal Bank of Scotland has recently admitted that the European Union forced them to sell more assets than it had planned.
In the morning of the 2th of November, RBS announced that they had to make some sacrifices to conclude a deal to receive state aid support from the EU. The sacrifice RBS is supposed to make was that they have to sell parts of its operations which they hoped to preserve after the restructuration.
The main concern from RBS is now to maintain as much as possible from their original recovery plan without losing too much from their activities.
The EU is demanding that RBS sells their Churchill and Direct Line insurance operations, as well as hundreds of branch offices. RBS is also trying to fight the demand of the EU to sell their US retail arm, Citizens Bank.
In my opinion the European Union has the right to make demands towards the banks that are in need for financial support. All this support is mainly tax payer’s money and therefore the possible risk of losing this should be strictly minimized. Also the priorities of the banks are completely different then those of the EU. The banks will try to restrict their dismissals to a minimum and try to obtain as much support as possible.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/02/rbs-admits-eu-sale-plan