The prolonged crisis exposed the vulnerability of a monetary union without a banking union. The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), which started operating in November 2014, is an essential step towards restoring banks to health and rebuilding trust in the banking system. The ECB is today...

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...

"State guarantees commonly function as financial panacea, allowing states to consolidate banking systems and create intergovernmental funds. Rules surrounding state guarantees were relaxed during the 2007-2008 financial crisis, allowing states to use them for financing small and medium-sized...