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First Steps Towards Banking Union Agreed…

…with respect to 200 banks.

As the FT reported today, eurozone finance ministers agreed a plan for a common bank supervisor in the early hours of this morning.  Beginning in early 2013, the ECB will take responsibility for the supervision of banks – but only those having assets of more than €30bn, or representing more than a fifth of a state’s national output.  In addition, there are no explicit provisions governing timeframes in which the ECB is to assume responsibility for the EU’s biggest banks.

The single supervisor is seen as the first, and easiest, step in the three-stage process which will lead towards EU banking union, the other stages being the creation of a EU-wide common deposit guarantee scheme and a single European recovery and resolution framework.  An inability to confidently take this first step does not bode well for the future.  If banking union is to mean anything is must surely create a level playing field, not the two-tier regime threatened by the current political fudge.

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