Europe’s Banking union at ten: unfinished yet transformative

Nicolas Véron offers the first comprehensive exploration of the genesis, implementation and possible future completion of the banking union

Publishing date: 25 June 2024
Authors: Nicolas Véron

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Europe’s banking union, the project to pool responsibility for prudential policy at European Union level, became a reality in 2014 with the empowerment of the European Central Bank as banking supervisor. Ten years on, the project remains unfinished, as European countries can still leverage their domestic banking sectors to serve their special interests and the intervention framework for banking crises continues to be an awkward mix of national and EU authorities and instruments.

But the achievements of even this incomplete banking union have been impressive. The decision on ECB banking supervision, made in mid-2012, was crucial for the eventual resolution of the euro-area crisis. The subsequent decade of supervisory practice appears to have been highly successful, meeting its objectives of banking-system safety and soundness. Still, Europe pays a high price for its reluctance to finish the work.

The present volume, by the scholar who introduced the term ‘banking union’ into the European public debate, offers the first comprehensive exploration of the genesis, implementation and possible future completion of this major policy endeavour.

If you missed the launch event of this book on Tuesday, 25 June 2024, you may watch it here.

The launch event featured a panel discussion between:

Rebecca Christie, Senior fellow, Bruegel
Vítor Constâncio, Former Vice President, European Central Bank
Mairead McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union
Nicolas Véron, Senior fellow, Bruegel
Maarten Verwey, Director General, European Commission, DG ECFIN

About the authors

Nicolas Véron

Nicolas Véron is a senior fellow at Bruegel and at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC. His research is mostly about financial systems and financial reform around the world, including global financial regulatory initiatives and current developments in the European Union. He was a cofounder of Bruegel starting in 2002, initially focusing on Bruegel’s design, operational start-up and development, then on policy research since 2006-07. He joined the Peterson Institute in 2009 and divides his time between the US and Europe.

Véron has authored or co-authored numerous policy papers that include banking supervision and crisis management, financial reporting, the Eurozone policy framework, and economic nationalism. He has testified repeatedly in front of committees of the European Parliament, national parliaments in several EU member states, and US Congress. His publications also include Smoke & Mirrors, Inc.: Accounting for Capitalism, a book on accounting standards and practices (Cornell University Press, 2006), and several books in French.

His prior experience includes working for Saint-Gobain in Berlin and Rothschilds in Paris in the early 1990s; economic aide to the Prefect in Lille (1995-97); corporate adviser to France’s Labour Minister (1997-2000); and chief financial officer of MultiMania / Lycos France, a publicly-listed online media company (2000-2002). From 2002 to 2009 he also operated an independent Paris-based financial consultancy.

Véron is a board member of the derivatives arm (Global Trade Repository) of the Depositary Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a financial infrastructure company that operates globally on a not-for-profit basis. A French citizen born in 1971, he has a quantitative background as a graduate from Ecole Polytechnique (1992) and Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (1995). He is trilingual in English, French and Spanish, and has fluent understanding of German and Italian.

In September 2012, Bloomberg Markets included Véron in its second annual 50 Most Influential list with reference to his early advocacy of European banking union.