Europes sovereign debt crisis and the accompanying national bank crises in the European Union brought bank regulation and supervision to the top of the EU policy agenda. In a few short years, we have witnessed a 'great leap forward for European integration marked by over a dozen pieces of EU legislation shaping the operation of banks, rules on bank capital, reconfigured supervisory agencies, and Banking Union. The significance of these measures lies however, in the fact that they constitute the most dramatic transfer of policy-making powers to the European level since the start of Economic and Monetary Union in 1999.
This volume addresses the three main political battles behind the adoption of these new regulatory and supervisory policies. First, it examines divisions among states, both according to their domestic institutional structures, including distinct financial systems, as well as their creditor or debtor status in the crisis. Second, it studies the battle over national versus supranational jurisdiction. Third, it explores the conflictual process of policy learning and the activation of epistemic communities who claim competence to address the crisis.
This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal West European Politics.
1. Introduction: supranational banking supervision in Europe David Howarth and Huw Macartney
2. The political dynamics behind Europes new banking union Rachel A. Epstein and Martin Rhodes
3. Internationalised banking, alternative banks and the Single Supervisory Mechanism David Howarth and Lucia Quaglia
4. Domestic preferences and European banking supervision: Germany, Italy and the Single Supervisory Mechanism Domenico Lombardi and Manuela Moschella
5. A differentiated leap forward: spillover, path-dependency, and graded membership in European banking regulation Frank Schimmelfennig
6. EU ring-fencing and the defence of too-big-to-fail banks Iain Hardie and Huw Macartney
7. Integrating macro-prudential policy: central banks as the `third force in EU financial reform Samuel McPhilemy
8. Statistical agencies and responses to financial crises: Eurostat, bad banks, and the ESM Christopher Gandrud and Mark Hallerberg
9. Banking union through the back door? How European banking union affects Sweden and the Baltic States Aneta B. Spendzharova and Ismail Emre Bayram
10. Banking union and the future of alternative banks: revival, stagnation or decline? Richard Deeg and Shawn Donnelly