The Difficult Construction of European Banking Union

The Difficult Construction of European Banking Union examines the political, legal and economic issues surrounding the lacunae and design faults of European Banking Union and its problematic operation.

The volume brings together the work of sixteen scholars focused on the diverse debates surrounding the construction and operation of Banking Union (BU), and its necessary reform. BU represents one of the most important developments in European integration since the launch of Monetary Union. Furthermore, the design of the BU agreed between 2012 and 2014 was a messy compromise among EU member states. It is not surprising then that BU has sparked a lively academic debate and triggered an ever-growing number of publications from different disciplinary backgrounds. The first wave of academic work on BU focuses upon the economic rationale underpinning the supranationalisation of control over banking ? regulation, supervision, support and resolution ? and the political dynamics and legal issues that shaped the design of the Union agreed. This volume is located at the intersection of this first phase of academic research and a second stage which analyses the functioning of the different elements of BU. New research questions are triggered by the albeit limited empirical evidence on BU?s implementation and operation. Contributions to this second wave of research attempt to identify potentially dangerous lacunae and contribute to on-going reform debates.

The Difficult Construction of European Banking Union will be of great interest to scholars of the European Union, Banking, Economic Governance, and Political Economy. Most of the chapters were originally published as three special issues in the Journal of Economic Policy Reform.

Introduction: The Difficult Construction of European Banking Union David Howarth and Joachim Schild Section 1: On the Political Science and Political Economy of Banking Union 1. Banking union: the disadvantages of opportunism David G. Mayes 2. Germany and France at Cross Purposes. The Case of Banking Union Joachim Schild 3. Liberal Economic Nationalism, Financial Stability and Commission Leniency in Banking Union Shawn Donnelly 4. Theoretical Lessons from EMU and Banking Union: Plus ça change David Howarth and Lucia Quaglia Section 2: On the design and functioning of supranational bank supervision 5. Building responsive supervision over smaller banks in Europe: an insight from the Principal-Agent perspective Jakub Gren 6. Harmonising national options and discretions in the EU banking regulation Zdenek Kudrna and Sonja Puntscher Riekmann 7. Consultations and the ECB as Prudential Regulator: Enhancing Legitimacy? Ute Lettanie 8. The multiple accountabilities of the European Banking Authority John-Paul Salter 9. Rethinking the allocation of macroprudential mandates within the Banking Union – a perspective from east of the BU Katalin Mérő and Dóra Piroska Section 3: On the design of the Single Resolution Mechanism 10. Banking union: the problem of untried systems David G. Mayes 11. International Law as a Negotiation Tool in Banking Union: the case of the Single Resolution Fund Ioannis G. Asimakopoulos 12. A Common Backstop to the Single Resolution Fund Florian Brandt and Matthias WohlfahrtSection 4: Setbacks en route to a sustainable Banking Union: the European Deposit Insurance Scheme and Bank Structural Reform 13. The difficult construction of a European Deposit Insurance Scheme: a step too far in Banking Union? David Howarth and Lucia Quaglia 14. Advocacy coalitions and the lack of deposit insurance in Banking Union Shawn Donnelly 15. Deposit guarantee reform in Europe: does European deposit insurance scheme increase banking stability? Rosaria Cerrone 16. Balancing market liquidity: Bank Structural Reform caught between growth and stability Vanessa Endrejat and Matthias Thiemann

David Howarth is Professor of European Political Economy at the University of Luxembourg and a former Jean Monnet Chair at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author or co-author of numerous works on EU economic governance, including The Political Economy of Banking Union, 2016.

Joachim Schild is Professor of Comparative Politics at Trier University, Germany. He published on Franco-German relations, French European Policy and the political economy of European integration. He co-authored (with Ulrich Krotz) Shaping Europe: France, Germany, and Embedded Bilateralism from the Elysée Treaty to Twenty-First Century Politics, 2013.