Ubide, A., (2013), “How to form a more perfect European Banking Union”, Peterson Institute for International Economics, Policy Brief, PB13-23, Οκτώβριος.
The euro area has made significant strides in the last six months in designing a banking union. The goal has been to centralize supervisory decision making and improve the management of failing banks while protecting European taxpayers and imposing costs on creditors through so-called bail-ins to reduce moral hazard. Euro area leaders have reached some political agreements, and legislation is being prepared for eventual adoption by the European Parliament and then the various member states. This progress has been hailed as a step in the right direction, with particular praise for the euro area leaders’ plan to endow the European Central Bank (ECB) with supervisory powers and create new rules for managing troubled banks.
European leaders first proposed the banking union in mid-2012 as a reaction to the sovereign debt crisis. Its purpose was to convince markets that European leaders would break the link between troubled banks and debt-burdened sovereigns at the national level. The objective was to end the vicious circle whereby a crisis in a nation’s bank or banks immediately spread to doubts about the solvency of the governments that tried to stand behind the banks. The best solution for that problem would have been to issue eurobonds backed by taxpayers across the region, which would have credibly shored up the stability of the system and helped sovereigns and banks through such systemic crises. But eurobonds were too sensitive a political issue and euro area leaders sought to avoid a debate on them. Activating the ECB’s supervisory power was an attractive alternative step at the time because it does not require any change in the EU treaties. The current blueprint of the banking union exists because it was the easiest alternative at a time of stress, not because it was carefully designed to be the best one.
Σχετικές Αναρτήσεις
- Mayer, Thomas, (2013), “A Copernican turn in Banking Union urgently needed”, CEPS Policy Briefs, N. 297.
- Veron, Nicolas, (2013), “A realistic bridge towards European banking union”, Peterson Institute for International Economics Policy Brief, N. 13-17.
- Gros, Daniel, (2013), “EZ banking union with a sovereign virus”, www.voxeu.org, 14 Ιουνίου.