will "covered" bonds fix real-estate downturn?

[sniglet]

There is a lot of talk these days (from Treasurer Paulson, and others) of using "covered bonds" as a solution to kick start the real-estate financial industry again.

However, I must be missing something. Aren't covered bonds pretty much the same thing as mortgage securities? How could a "covered" bond be of greater interest to investors if it is backed by the same underlying mortgages as a traditional RMBS? Or to put it another way, why would investors choose to buy mortgages packaged into covered bonds rather than an RMBS if they aren't comfortable with the underlying mortgages in the first place?

This almost seems as if covered bonds are merely an attempt to re-brand mortgage securities, without actually changing anything in the underlying asset classes. Sure, it's possible that investors might be willing to buy into new pools of mortgages that used MUCH higher lending criteria than in the past, but that doesn't do one thing to help clean out the toxic waste of deteriorating mortgage vintanges financial institutions have on their books.