With the European Union facing its biggest crisis in 60 years, Brussels proposed yesterday taking “a big leap forward” to save the troubled bloc by setting up a single banking union.
The suggestions to be put to a summit tomorrow and Friday were made public after being delivered to the bloc’s 27 capitals by EU President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi and Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker.
A report from the four titled “Towards a genuine economic and monetary union” suggests EU leaders agree that a pan-European banking authority be put in place and give Brussels the final say over national budgets in the euro zone.
“We need a banking union, a fiscal union and further steps toward political union,” Barroso told a conference. “The first of these building blocks that can be achieved quickly without treaty change is an integrated financial framework, a banking union,” he said.
Under intense global pressure as the two-and-a-half-year sovereign debt crisis infects Spain and Cyprus after Greece, Ireland and Portugal, EU officials have been scrambling to shore up monetary union with banking, fiscal, and eventually political union. The report sets no deadlines for deepening EU integration, offering instead to finalize a grand road map for the future in December.
EU floats banking union to save bloc
