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The banks’ plight arises from mounting losses on their loans. Between the middle of 2012 and of 2013, the ratio of non-performing to total loans rose from 13.2% to 17.4%, which is the highest level in the euro zone after Greece and Ireland (see chart). The bad debts have been incurred predominantly through lending to businesses.

Only the state can provide the funds needed to recapitalise the banks. It wants them to transfer a big chunk of their bad loans to a state-run “bad bank”, for much less than their original value.

In this respect Slovenia is a textbook case of the problem that has plagued other parts of the euro zone: the link between weak banks, which governments end up recapitalising at great expense, and weak government finances.

“But on the other, we still haven't seen a reform breakthrough on a broad front and particularly not in the largest crisis country - Italy.”

Slovenia also threatens to become a problem child because of its banks, which are sitting on a mountain of bad debt.

Does all of this mean that Europe is headed toward a rocky fall and a return of the euro crisis? Commerzbank's Krämer doesn't rule out the possibility. For him, the causes of the crisis are far from resolved. “We have not seen reform efforts on a broad scale, and in the background we have the European Central Bank, which is camouflaging the crisis through its policy of cheap money and the prospect of government bond purchases.”