Tag: banking union

Finance ministers reached agreement early today (13 December) on the basic mechanism for a single supervisory authority over eurozone banks – the key first step to a banking union.

EXCLUSIVE / EurActiv France has obtained a copy of the draft conclusions of the EU summit in Brussels on 13-14 December. Plans to complete the legal framework for a European banking union are partly delayed until 2013. And the debate over deepening economic and political integration in the eurozone - including changing the EU treaties - will not take place until after the 2014 European elections.

German Finance Minster Wolfgang Schäuble has signalled a readiness to compromise on the EU's planned banking union and said leaders are working intensively to agree on a legal framework by Christmas, German media reported.

Germany and France clashed publicly on Tuesday (4 December) over plans to put the European Central Bank in charge of supervising banks, deepening a dispute over the scope of ECB powers that threatens to derail one of Europe's boldest reforms.

The City of London should no longer be the euro's main financial centre so the eurozone can "control" most financial business in the region, France's central bank governor said in an interview published on Monday (3 December).

The European Parliament is voting in committee this week on the legislation which installs the single supervisory mechanism for Europe's banks. Tricky stuff - especially when certain governments in the Council appear to be backsliding on the banking union, writes Andrew Duff.

EurActiv Video brings you a compilation of short clips from the EU summit which ended Friday (19 October).

European Union leaders have agreed plans to complete the European banking union by January 2014, after the general elections in Germany. The concession was made to Angela Merkel who argued for "quality" over "speed" in putting in place the new supervisory system.

The two-day EU summit that begins today (18 October) will be an exploratory one, according to diplomats in Brussels who say EU leaders will be seeking “the lower common denominators” for shaping the economic and monetary union. 

Germany, the Netherlands and Finland have issued a joint declaration that appears to unravel much of what was agreed at the last European summit in June, when EU leaders paved the way for the direct recapitalisation of troubled banks.

European Commission proposals for a banking union that gives the European Central Bank (ECB) supervision of all eurozone banks were tabled in Strasbourg yesterday (12 September), as a first step towards closer economic and monetary union within the single currency zone.

Safeguards proposed by Brussels to stop a newly beefed-up European Central Bank from calling the shots on banks beyond the eurozone are unlikely to satisfy Britain and other EU countries that do not use the common currency.

The extent to which European banking union will cover all banks in the eurozone came under fire yesterday (3 September) as MEPs and the German finance minister raised doubts that the Commission’s blueprint will be feasible.

Failure to create a deeper eurozone union would represent an enormous problem for banks, the head of Italian bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena said yesterday (27 August).

The European Commission is aiming to present its banking union plan by September 11, in a bid to contain the euro crisis that has prompted several EU countries to seek bailout to finance their banks, EU officials reportedly said on Monday (6 August).

The leaders of France and Germany joined in a symbolic celebration of unity on Sunday (8 July), hailing a relationship that has brought peace to Europe for 50 years. French President François Hollande underlined that the proposed banking union is the “first step to a budgetary union, which will open the way to stability, growth, and tighter ties.”

European leaders meeting in Brussels aim to agree a roadmap for a new banking union and fiscal integration, with the former providing the most opportunity for solid progress in the short term.

Europe won support from world leaders yesterday (19 June) for an ambitious but slow-moving overhaul of the eurozone, even as pressure built in financial markets for quicker solutions to its debt crisis that threatens the world economy.