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...

Europe’s banking system has been in a state of systemic fragility since 2007-08. The current phase is marked by a sequence of interactions between sovereign problems and banking problems, resulting in gradual contagion to more countriesand more asset classes. The banking and sovereign crises...

Shifts in global economic dominance are by nature tectonic and never precipitated by single events. The Great Recession of 2008â??09, however, has presented the European Union, its common currency the euro, and the United States with new global challenges. The transatlantic partnership has...

Even though the roots of the global financial crisis lay in risky financial structures in the United States and weaknesses in financial regulation, the crisis became global mainly because of significant financial and trade linkages between the US and other countries. Most countries, including...

Listen to the press conference call. The European Council has outlined the creation of a Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), complementing the Single Supervisory Mechanism. The thinking on the SRMâ??s legal basis, design and mission is still preliminary and depends on other major initiatives,...

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 Europeâ??s...

Yesterday marked the five-years anniversary of the Pittsburgh Summit, the culmination of the initial phase of G-20 activity. Five years ago, the declarations of the G20 in landmark leadersâ?? summits in London and Pittsburgh listed specific commitments on financial regulatory reform. When...

In the wake of recent crisis developments in the US and Europe, non-bank credit channels have often been portrayed as 'shadow banking' and have been considered primarily through the lens of the risks they may pose to financial stability. However, the debate about financial system structures...

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...