European Union (EU) Economic and Finance Ministers reached an agreement on a draft establishing a framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms on Thursday.
EU leaders are preparing for a two-day meeting in which they also plan to tackle measures to increase credit access to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and reduce youth unemployment.
Ecofin, as the group of EU Economic and Finance Ministers is known, set the guidelines for resolution of banks in crisis at three different stages: “preparatory and preventative, early intervention and resolution”. The framework also sets up a seniority system for the bail-in tool which would allow authorities to write down or convert into equity the claims of shareholders, creditors and/or depositors. With respect to the latter group, and as was the case in the bailout of Cyprus, deposits below the €100,000 threshold would be protected.
In case of a bank crisis, a minimum level of losses of 8.0% of of total liabilities will be imposed on shareholders and creditors, and "under special circumstances", 20% of risk weighted assets. The contribution of the resolution fund would be limited to a maximum of 5.0% of total liabilities.
The draft framework also calls for Member States to set up national resolution funds, expected to reach within 10 years a level of at least 0.8% of covered deposits in the country.
"If the banks get into trouble we will now, throughout Europe, have one set of rules on who pays the bill," Eurogroup president and Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem told CNBC.
"So that's a major shift from the public means, from the taxpayer if you will, back to the financial sector which will now become for a very, very large extent, responsible for dealing with its own problems," Dijsselbloem explained.
In any case, it should be taken into consideration that this agreement was just the first hurdle in a series of discussions. Now negotiations will begin with the European Parliament “with the aim of adopting the directive at first reading before the end of the year”.
Regardless, Barclays considers this agreement to be “good news” as it “paves the way for a start to discussions on the establishment of a Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), the second leg of the banking union. The Commission will likely present its proposal at the July Ecofin meeting”.
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altri dettagli sull'accordo