So far only Scandinavia and the Benelux countries have seen significant cross-border bank mergers.

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Occasionally, the three Benelux countries have tried, without much success, to speed up integration within the European Union by turning themselves into an ever tighter, more dynamic inner core.

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North-south divisions are hardly new in the EU. When the euro was planned in the 1990s many German politicians wanted a currency zone comprising only Germany, the Benelux countries and France.

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But Europe's longer term worries will remain over Italy, which has traditionally produced prime ministers ready to go along with the French, Germans and Benelux countries in pushing for greater European integration.

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The integrationist camp - especially the founding countries in the Benelux, Germany and France - has lost.

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The parameters for such interventions are evidently the subject of considerable controversy, particularly given the need to comply with the EU Treaty and the sensitivities towards any formal program of purchases expressed by central banks from the surplus countries (Germany and possibly Benelux, Finland and Austria), Barclays said.

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