New EU roadmap derailed

The 10-year roadmap, released on Tuesday by four officials led by European Union President Herman Van Rompuy, centered on common banking supervision and deposit insurance and a “criteria-based and phased” move toward joint debt issuance. It also suggests that the EU could impose upper limits on annual budgets and debt levels of nations that use the euro.

“Parts of it read like a wish list,” German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Link told reporters in Luxembourg. The proposals lean “toward various models for mutualising debt. What comes up short is improved controls,” he said.

Germany’s instant opposition lessened the chances that a June 28-29 summit — the 19^th since the debt crisis broke out in early 2010 — will point the way out of the turmoil that threatens to splinter the euro currency.

Van Rompuy collaborated on the proposals with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, European Commission President Jose Barroso and Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who manages meetings of euro finance ministers.

Banking supervision in the euro area could be entrusted to the ECB, under a provision in the EU’s treaty that allows member nations to give the central bank more oversight of all financial institutions except insurance companies. The report envisions an EU-wide deposit-insurance programme, to “strengthen credibility” of existing national backstops, as well as financial sector- funded scheme for winding down banks.

Broad deposit guarantees would require a “solid financial backstop,” the report said. Within the euro area, the €500 billion ($625 billion) European Stability Mechanism could stand behind deposit insurance guarantees and the resolution fund for shutting failing banks.

Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said the discussion about introducing a banking union in the euro area can’t take place without it being part of the debate on fiscal union. He said the currency bloc’s politicians need more serious discussion of sharing sovereignty.

“It makes little sense to single out the banking sector when talking about mutualisation of debt, without taking the rest into account,” Weidmann, who also sits on the ECB’s Governing Council, said in Hamburg on Monday. —