All 27 EU countries should submit their big banks to a single cross-border supervisor as part of a banking union to be enacted as soon as next year, the president of the European Commission has urged.
In a Financial Times interview, José Manuel Barroso said the EU needed to go beyond incremental legislative measures proposed by his institution last week and take “a very big step” towards deeper integration if the bloc is to learn from the sovereign debt crisis.
The plan, which would also include an EU-wide deposit guarantee scheme and a rescue fund paid for by levies on financial institutions, could be achieved by next year and without changes in the bloc’s existing treaties, Mr Barroso said.