The European Council on Foreign Relations

Hurray, the banking union is coming!

Date: 27th June 2012  |  Author: Ulrike Guérot,

Categories: Germany in Europe, Reinventing Europe,

The forthcoming European Council is heading with unprecedented speed towards a banking union and historians may remember this as the turning point of the Euro crisis. The question is what kind of integration and how quickly it can be achieved. Proposals range from hybrid structures to a full integration of European banks and a common European deposit scheme.

As the EU Commission memo on banking union states: “The European banking union is not a new legal instrument yet. It is a political vision for more EU integration, which will build on recent major steps to strengthen the regulation of the banking sector and go further.”

The next EU summit could be a moment where political dreams come true, e.g. one of a European treasury with a Finance Minister, overseeing European banking policy, as advocated by former ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet last year, when he was awarded the

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