"Da kann man dann besser reagieren."

"Then one can governreact better."

The beginning of the summit. The swing was first reported last morning by FTD. As for a reason for the swing, there is that first article I paraphrased, "anonymous government people say that the rest of Europe should follow or else be suspect of hiding dark secrets" (I could post a full translation in an hour).

Who will be the loser (politically) as a result? Ackermann or Merkel?

On this, neither. The German media coverage of the summit focuses on the austerity consensus and the Merkel resp. Franco-German failure with the financial transfer tax. But surely this is a loss of face for Ackermann for speaking out personally, now that the whole bankers' association folded.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

In short, FTD views the stress test publication as a deception, because the problematic Spanish banks aren't covered by the stress tests. Later on the FTD article writes that the German federal government s now more open than in the past, and recounts that the Grand Coalition government was vehemently against a publication when stress tests were first agreed in 2009, suggesting that that was grounded in the low capitalisation of some German banks.

Then the FTD was first reporting the change of opinion on Wednesday (below from the online summary of a print-only article):

Most other media reported the change by paraphrasing FTD, for example in SPIEGEL's version, only the intro line can be viewed as commentary:

It is again interesting how the "flip-flop" SPIEGEL International article you quote (signed as "cgh -- with wire reports") has a different spin than the articles in the German edition.

In Handelsblatt, I find a more complete report on what Axel Weber and the finance ministry state secretary said. Turns out I interpreted Weber wrong, he was more proactive (calling for an expansion of stress tests), mentioned Soffin himself; and the state secretary only endorsed that, while adding further expansionary proposals himself:

These proposals to widen the stress tests explains something that did not make sense to me before: the resistance against the publication drive came not just from Ackermann, but representatives of smaller banks and even the head of the association of savings banks, none of which is currently under the reach of EU stress tests.

The article I paraphrased first upthread, is a Die Welt article on the banks' opposition, and the bit giving a possible reason for the German government's swing is:

Ahead of the EU summit, the expected EU consensus for publication was even spun as a result of the German government's swing:

The Spanish central bank is only the trigger rather than the forcer of everyone's hands in this spin. Note that on the same day, FTD wrote a lead article opposing the publication (echoing Ackermann about a supposed lack of mitigation preparedness, and arguing for more strict own capital requirements instead).

Handelsblatt was more moderate (but their source missed Austria from the oponents' list). After noting Spain's lead,

So overall, it is a policy win for the government and a loss of the banking sector in the eyes of the German business media.

A final remark: it seems that one central rationale of the German government that was reported, but was not recognised in the media comments with their focus on countries is: the hoped-for positive effect of the publication on interbank lending. But before the FTD report of the German government's swing, Handelsblatt wrote without specifying sources: