Europe ’ s banking union – glass half full or glass half empty ?

Earlier this year, European authorities agreed on the second pillar of the banking union, a single resolution mechanism, to come into effect in 2016. After the ECB taking over responsibility for bank supervision (directly for the largest, indirectly for all banks) in the Eurozone, centralizing resolution as complement for centralized supervision has been an important next step. The result is a coordination mechanism on top of national resolution mechanisms that also involves the European Commission. A third pillar, a joint deposit insurance funding scheme, has been quietly dropped.