Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe said he was “encouraged” by the reactions of EU finance ministers to his draft work programme to complete the banking union, while being aware of the workload that remains to be done to reach an agreement “by the end of June”, at the end of a videoconference meeting of the Eurogroup in an enlarged format on Tuesday 3 May (see EUROPE 12942/21).
“There is broad agreement on the need to make progress on the banking union”, Mr Donohoe said. According to him, one group of countries described his draft work programme as “balanced”; another group of countries recognised the “progress” made since the last discussions on this long-running issue, while “many countries called for further work”.
The Irish Finance Minister did not specify which of the four areas of work - improving the management of a banking crisis, creating a European deposit guarantee scheme, deepening the single banking market and dealing with sovereign risk - had been most discussed.
However, Mr Donohoe warned, “there is very little room for manoeuvre”, and a significant change to the draft work programme could jeopardise the overall “balance” being sought.
The president of the Eurogroup described the two legislative phases he envisages to complete the banking union by 2030. At the end of the first phase of legislative initiative, a political meeting (‘checkpoint’) would constitute a “guarantee” allowing Member States to decide by consensus to launch the second phase, if the first phase has been completed as foreseen in the future work programme. But the aim is to agree at the outset on the main elements of the second phase to avoid any unpleasant surprises, he said.
See the draft work plan: https://aeur.eu/f/1G6 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)