Brussels – European Union (EU) leaders have given their backing to a common set of rules for managing the closure of failing eurozone banks.Under a plan earlier agreed by finance ministers, a 55b euro fund will be set up, financed by the banking industry, over 10 years.The deal is aimed at building an EU banking union that should minimise the need for taxpayer-funded bailouts.French President Francois Hollande said the deal would boost investor confidence.“Now the European taxpayer, the French taxpayer won’t have to pay anything if there were another financial crisis,” he said during the EU leaders’ meeting in Brussels, Belgium.Italy’s Prime Minister Enrico Letta welcomed the move as “a big step forward”.Under the banking union plan, a new European resolution authority will be created to decide when and how insolvent banks are to be closed. The UK and 10 other non-eurozone economies are not part of the deal. A resolution fund paid for by the banks themselves would gradually merge national pots into a common European fund.BBC said the idea is to minimise collateral damage from bank failures.It added that the fact that eurozone finance ministers have retained the powers to decide the fate of failing banks does not augur well for speedy action.And the 10-year lead time will not reassure the creditors of Spain and Italy, for example, that they will not end up liable.Moreover, 55b euros is peanuts compared with the balance sheets of eurozone banks, BBC said.EU leaders were keen to finalise a deal before new bank “stress tests” begin next year.The European Central Bank has been put in charge of eurozone bank supervision. The stress tests are expected to reveal that some banks are overexposed, and will require new injections of capital.
