Suchergebnisse

In May 2014, 26 Member States of the EU concluded an intergovernmental agreement on the transfer and mutualization of contribution to the Single Resolution Fund (SRF). This international treaty constitutes a core component of the second pillar of the European Banking Union – the Single Resolution Mechanism, to wind down failing banks in the Euro-zone – and complements an EU regulation adopted by the European Parliament and the Council creating the SRF. This article critically analyses the choice to use international law to adopt the rules on transfer and mutualization of contributions to the SRF. As the article maintains, resort to an intergovernmental agreement in this case was not necessary from a legal point of view. In fact, the justification for the use of international law in this case rested on a flawed legal argument, namely that EU regulations cannot impose financial obligations on the states. Moreover, as the article explains, resort to international law is unsound from a policy point of view. The use of an international treaty to regulate the transfer and mutualization of contributions to the SRF opens the door for national courts' review of the agreement – a prospect which contrasts with the constitutional logic of leaving decisions about economic questions in the political process. In light of these weaknesses, the article explains that the intergovernmental agreement was tolerated by the European Parliament to secure completion of the Banking Union before the 2014 EU elections, but concludes suggesting that a pressing constitutional challenge for the European Parliament is to devise legal and political mechanisms to prohibit the Member States from acting outside the EU legal order whenever the Treaties provide for the powers and means to act within the Union.

In response to the recent financial crisis, European policymakers put banking regulation in the Eurozone on top of the agenda. In 2016, as part of the newly created European banking union, a mechanism for resolving troubled banks, the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), became fully operational for the 19 member states of the euro area. The SRM was established to avoid future involvement of tax payers' money in the resolution of banks. This paper focuses on the negotiations on one of its instruments, the Single Resolution Fund (SRF), a fund of ex-ante contributions of Eurozone banks set up to winding down unviable banks. The SRF proved to be a main conflict issue during the negotiations. Germany and France were pushing for diverging preferences although both countries' banking sectors suffered from the crisis and both governments generally favored a regulatory approach on the European level. I provide an institutionalist explanation for these opposing positions of the two most important Eurozone countries. By drawing on the "Varieties of Capitalism" literature, I explain how the distinct features of these countries' financial and banking systems accounted for their preferences. On the one side, German negotiators sought to preserve the dominant way of bank-based corporate finance by particularly protecting savings and cooperative banks. On the other, the French government was in favor of higher contributions by the banking sector because market-based corporate finance is more prevalent in France. Nevertheless, France aimed at keeping its 'national champions' out as far as possible. This paper has important implications for how to think about preference formation in European financial regulation.

In response to the recent financial crisis, European policymakers put banking regulation in the Eurozone on top of the agenda. In 2016, as part of the newly created European banking union, a mechanism for resolving troubled banks, the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), became fully operational for the 19 member states of the euro area. The SRM was established to avoid future involvement of tax payers' money in the resolution of banks. This paper focuses on the negotiations on one of its instruments, the Single Resolution Fund (SRF), a fund of ex-ante contributions of Eurozone banks set up to winding down unviable banks. The SRF proved to be a main conflict issue during the negotiations. Germany and France were pushing for diverging preferences although both countries' banking sectors suffered from the crisis and both governments generally favored a regulatory approach on the European level. I provide an institutionalist explanation for these opposing positions of the two most important Eurozone countries. By drawing on the "Varieties of Capitalism" literature, I explain how the distinct features of these countries' financial and banking systems accounted for their preferences. On the one side, German negotiators sought to preserve the dominant way of bank-based corporate finance by particularly protecting savings and cooperative banks. On the other, the French government was in favor of higher contributions by the banking sector because market-based corporate finance is more prevalent in France. Nevertheless, France aimed at keeping its 'national champions' out as far as possible. This paper has important implications for how to think about preference formation in European financial regulation.

In response to the recent financial crisis, European policymakers put banking regulation in the Eurozone on top of the agenda. In 2016, as part of the newly created European banking union, a mechanism for resolving troubled banks, the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), became fully operational for the 19 member states of the euro area. The SRM was established to avoid future involvement of tax payers' money in the resolution of banks. This paper focuses on the negotiations on one of its instruments, the Single Resolution Fund (SRF), a fund of ex-ante contributions of Eurozone banks set up to winding down unviable banks. The SRF proved to be a main conflict issue during the negotiations. Germany and France were pushing for diverging preferences although both countries' banking sectors suffered from the crisis and both governments generally favored a regulatory approach on the European level. I provide an institutionalist explanation for these opposing positions of the two most important Eurozone countries. By drawing on the "Varieties of Capitalism" literature, I explain how the distinct features of these countries' financial and banking systems accounted for their preferences. On the one side, German negotiators sought to preserve the dominant way of bank- based corporate finance by particularly protecting savings and cooperative banks. On the other, the French government was in favor of higher contributions by the banking sector because market-based corporate finance is more prevalent in France. Nevertheless, France aimed at keeping its 'national champions' out as far as possible. This paper has important implications for how to think about preference formation in European financial regulation.

The new directive of the European Parliament and the European Council issued in 2014 define unified expectations regarding banking resolution mechanism to be applied in territory of each EU member state. The non-euro zone member states must create national resolution funds while the euro zone member states have to upload the so called Single Resolution Fund. These funds are implemented in order to finance the banking resolution processes. This article introduces the main rules of the unified resolution system as well as deals with its financial background. The European Commission declared in its statement that the target level of the Single Resolution Fund is 55 billion euros. However, this paper provides evidence that this target level is underestimated.