Halt. The stop is again pronounced in German. Sources of the German delegation, present at the summit of heads of state and government which will begin this afternoon in Brussels, have declared that Berlin will not formally give the green light to discussions on the hypothesis of a banking union. According to the same sources the leaders will limit themselves to discussing a possible role of the European Central Bank (ECB) on a hypothetical centralized supervision of the sector, still to be defined. At most, tasks will be delegated to work on this hypothesis in the coming months.
Germany had previously expressed its opposition to the idea of creating a unified system on bank deposit guarantees. An idea dear to the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, which sees the banking union as the most immediate priority. To “ensure financial stability particularly in the euro area and minimize the costs of bank failures for European citizens,” Van Rompuy said, "it is necessary to raise the responsibility for supervision at a European level" and create "common crisis resolution and deposit guarantee mechanisms". On the other hand, the United Kingdom takes the side of Germany, which is also opposed to this hypothesis.
