Alex Salmond told the committee that there had been no directdiscussions with the Prime Minister over the release of Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, as it was a matter purely for the Scottish Government.
In order to break the vicious circle between banks and sovereigns, technical discussions on the future ESM direct bank recapitalisation instrument will also start in September so that the ESM could, following a regular decision, have the possibility to recapitalise banks directly once an effective single supervisory mechanism is established.