The financial crisis exposed Europe's inadequacy in developing an effective banking resolution framework that could bring together national authorities and set guidelines for their coordination. The European Commission, through its assessment of state aid cases, managed to avoid single market...

This paper discusses the creation of a European Banking Union. First, we discuss questions of design. We highlight seven fundamental choices that decision makers will need to make: Which EU countries should participate in the banking union? To which categories of banks should it apply? Which...

Five years after the first tremors in Europe's banking system, what makes the crisis unique is the absence of a democratically accountable decision-making framework; there is an 'executive deficit' that compounds Europe's democratic deficit. The author argues that the only way to resolve the...

Irrespective of the euro crisis, a European banking union makes sense, including for non-euro area countries, because of the extent of European Union financial integration.The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is the first element of the banking union. From the point of view of non-euro...

Problems in the banking system are at the core of the current crisis. The establishment of a banking union is a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for eventual crisis resolution that respects the integrity of the euro. The European Commission's proposal for the establishment of a Single...

New obstacles to the European banking union have emerged over the last year, but a successful transition remains both necessary and possible. The key next step will be in the second half of 2014, when the European Central Bank (ECB) will gain supervisory authority over most of Europe's banking...

The investigation of the sequencing of liberalization in the EU financial services industry is the primary object of this study. The relevance of the EU model for financial liberalization is threefold. First, the EU route towards liberalization in financial services could be regarded as a...

On May 1, 2004, ten countries in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe will become full members of the EU. The parliaments and monetary authorities of the ten accession countries have already to a large extent adapted their legal and institutional structures to the new Europe-wide environment....

Over time, the banking, insurance and securities sectors have become increasingly interlinked and one way through which this occurs is via financial conglomerates. Such groups, in particular those that combine banking and insurance, have over time become more important in Europe. They require an...

Following the adoption by the Basel Committee of new capital rules for banks, a process is now taking place in the EU to transpose the rules into Community law and, ultimately, into national legislation. This paper gives an overview of the main issues that relate to the EU implementation, mainly...