Institutional and Legal Aspects of the European Banking Union : Status Quo and the Way Forward

The aim of this paper is to briefly present and assess the institutional framework governing the (and some main legal aspects related to the) European Banking Union (EBU), as in force, and the proposals made or suggested in order to enhance it. The paper is structured in three (3) Sections: (1) A brief historical overview of EU institutional arrangements pertaining to the stability of the banking system in the European Union before the establishment of the EBU and the conditions that led to its establishment as a response to the current fiscal crisis in the euro area are the subject matter of Section 1.(2) The following Section 2 provides a brief description of the current content of the main pillars of the EBU and their link to the (underlying) single rulebook (the status quo). (3) Finally, Section 3 contains an overview, with some assessments, of the Commission's current reform agenda on the EBU, the two elements which the author considers as the “uncompleted agenda” and the link between a (more) robust Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and a well-functioning and (hence) financial stability-enhancing EBU.The cut-off date for information contained in this study is 23 December 2017