German economic advisor says Germany is using bailouts to rescue its own banks

On Sunday Salvados, a TV program from Spanish station La Sexta, aired a reportage (video) on the relationship between Germany and Spain in the crisis, under the title Viva Spanien. The program culminated in an 18-minute interview (see clip with supporting text from La Sexta) with Spanish-born German economist Jürgen Donges, which has had a great impact in Spanish media. Donges is a former German government economic advisor to the Kohl and Schröder administrat[ion]s, mischaracterised in some current press reports as an advisor to Merkel. There is an English-language summary at Forex Crunch.

Some of the key moments of the interview are as follows:

Donges points to household debt as a key indicator that 'Spain had been living above its means', for instance buying high-end German cars. This leads to a discussion of the mutual responsibility of Spanish borrowers and German lenders, which Donges resolves by pointing out that a car buyer informs himself about the car much more than he cares to do about taking a loan. Conversely, on lender responsibility Donges says he never advocated rescues of other countries "if the issue is to save our banks we should give the money to our banks" which is not done for political reasons. He concludes "it is true that, when we talk about 'rescuing Greece or Spain', and we economists say so, we're rescuing our banks exposed to those countries. It is clear to us."