THE long wait is over. For months financial markets have been speculating about the size of the capital hole in Slovenia’s blitzed-out banks, the resulting cost to the state in bailing them out, and whether this might push Slovenia into requiring a bail-out itself, the sixth euro-zone country to suffer that fate. Today the results of the stress tests were revealed. Both the Slovenian government and European authorities believe that they mean yet another bail-out can be avoided, but their confidence may prove premature.

The root-and-branch review of the Slovenian banking system revealed a total capital shortfall of €4.8 billion ($6.6 billion), of which the three biggest banks, all of which are state-controlled, account for €3.7 billion. Some of this hole will be filled in by measures such as a bail-in of subordinated debt, which will raise €440m. But the Slovenian government will still have to pump €3 billion into the three banks. Five other banks have until the end of June 2014 to cover their €1.1 billion shortfall through a combination of asset sales and private capital injections. If they fail to do so the government may have to chip in more.

As euro-zone banking bail-outs go, these amounts may not seem that large. Ireland’s epic one for example cost €64 billion, worth 41% of GDP. But Slovenia is a smaller country with just 2m people and annual output of €35 billion. Public debt, previously projected to be 63% of GDP this year will stand at 76% after the banking bail-out.

The government, led by Alenka Bratusek, the prime minister since March, is hoping that the banking review will mark a turning-point in the long festering crisis. The review commands respect since it has been carried out by independent consultants and auditors. The stress tests were conducted by Roland Berger and Oliver Wyman; the asset-quality review – a probing analysis of bank loans - by Deloitte and Ernst & Young.

Moreover, the figure for the capital shortfall is based on an adverse scenario in the stress tests. This subjects the Slovenian economy, which had already shrunk by 8.5% between 2008 and 2012, to a further contraction of 9.5% in the three years to 2015. That contrasts with a baseline scenario under which GDP falls by another 4.1%.

But though the review owns up to the full extent of the banking mess, the predicament of the banks is rooted in deeper economic weaknesses. The banks’ bad loans reflect excessive debt in non-financial companies. Defective insolvency procedures have made it hard to reduce that debt burden through arrangements such as swaps into equity. More generally the Slovenian state owns too much, often through a tangled skein of funds, and meddles too much. The government is trying to rectify these faults, not least through privatisation, but the reforms are late in the day.

The prolonged economic and financial crisis has already weakened the state. Though public debt of 76% of GDP will still be lower than the euro-zone average, it stood at just 22% in 2008. There is a danger that the state’s extensive involvement in the struggling private sector may cause further damage to the public balance-sheet.

The ultimate test will be whether the government can regain more regular and less costly access to the markets. Bond investors have been wary of Slovenia for over two years and the government has had to resort to unusual tactics such as a recent private placement of three-year bonds to a single investor, which raised €1.5 billion, and borrowing in dollars rather than euros. Although it has sufficient funds to finance the bail-out, it will need to borrow again next year. The result of the stress tests may have assuaged fears of the worst, but Slovenia still looks vulnerable, especially if sentiment in global bond markets sours when America’s central bank decides to slow its pace of asset purchases.