The headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany (AFP Photo/Johannes Eisele)Finance Ministers from the European Union's 27 countries agreed to appoint the ECB the single regulator for the biggest banks in the euro zone, marking the first concrete step to tackle the bloc’s problems together.The European Central Bank (ECB) will also come to the rescue of smaller European banks in case of a trouble. That’s after the main blocking point – the disagreement between German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and his French counterpart, Pierre Moscovici, over the ECB's role in banking supervision- was overcome.While Moscovici has been an advocate of a “single regulator” idea, Schaeuble has been cautious of giving the ECB too much power, and more specifically, allowing controls over his country's savings banks (Sparkassen) or the regional Landesbanken, which play an important role in public policymaking in Germany.The deal on bank supervision marks an important step towards a broader "banking union," or common euro area approach to dealing with failing banks that in recent years dragged down countries such as Ireland and Spain.The new rules should come into effect by the end of 2013, with the possibility of the deadline being extended, RBC reports.A lot of “blank spots” remaining in the agreement which is keeping analysts guessing , Anna Bodrova from Investcafe says the real efficiency of the model is now questionable.“For example, a lot of questions remain about the very mechanism of how the ECB will supervise the banks – whether it’ll be the very ECB or it’ll delegate such authority to a separate structure within itself.”On top of that, so far there’s no legislation giving exact detail on the responsibility of the ECB and the euro zone banks, Bodrova concluded. … Read More
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