Brussels, 29/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - So far, nearly half of all member states have notified the European Commission of their national measures to transpose the BRRD Directive (2004/59) harmonising the national bank restructuring and resolution schemes.
Greece is the latest member state to date to have adopted a national text to transpose the European rules applicable since January 2015. This procedure was one of the prior actions Athens had to execute before the eurozone countries would agree to start talks on a third bailout package.
The 12 other countries which have notified a full transposition of the BRRD Directive are: Austria, Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, Portugal, Denmark, Spain and Ireland. Three other countries - Cyprus, Belgium and Sweden - have notified a partial transposition.
The Commission is in the process of carrying out the necessary checks to ensure that the national texts complied with the European legislation.
The BRRD Directive introduces a hierarchy of investors which will be called upon in the event of a bail-in of a failing European bank. This means that from 2016, the shareholders and creditors of a bank will be called upon to make a contribution first, ahead of private savings exceeding €100,000 and the injection of public money (see EUROPE 11336).
The national resolution authorities will be responsible for applying this Directive, alongside the Single Resolution Board (ESRB) in the framework of banking union in the eurozone.
Ratification of IGA treaty. Currently, six member states have ratified the inter-governmental agreement, IGA, on which the Single Resolution Fund (SRF), the financial arm of the 'resolution' plank of banking union, is partially based (see EUROPE 11061). These countries are Finland, France, Latvia and Slovakia. Cyprus and Germany have also ratified the treaty, but have not yet deposited their instrument of ratification with the Secretariat General of the Council of the EU. (Mathieu Bion)