Perhaps saying that the Dutch state was taking over Fortis Nederland and ABN Amro to avoid being ‘infected’ by less healthy Belgian banks was not the most tactful comment finance minister Wouter Bos could make.

Nor was it particularly wise to talk of the Netherlands buying the good bits of the Fortis group and leaving Belgium with the problems. No wonder the Belgians are not exactly happy.
Coming less than a week after the joint partial nationalisation of the entire Fortis group, Bos’ sudden decision to go it alone and buy up all of Fortis’ activities in the Netherlands, including ABN Amro, came as a bolt out of the blue – to the man on the street at least.
But Holland’s pride – ABN Amro – is Holland’s pride again. Belgian tv apparently even covered Bos’ news conference with the Dutch national anthem as background music, stressing the nationalist edge to the takeover.
The ever tactful Bos, meanwhile, decided to write an entry in his weblog in which he apparently joked that he was in talks with the bosses of Rotterdam football club Feyenoord.
Feyenoord is, of course, sponsored by Fortis. A deal had been reached to replace the word ‘Fortis’ on players’ shirts with ‘staatskist’ (treasury), the minister said.
More appropriate however, might be the word ‘taxpayer’ because, after all, it is we who are footing the bill, whether we support Feyenoord or not.