LUXEMBOURG (AFP) ― EU finance ministers will try again this week to resolve deep differences over how to supervise, and if necessary close, failing banks before they can plunge the economy into crisis.
Ireland was among the worst affected by the collapse of its banks but over the weekend announced it would exit its 3-year, 85-billion-euro bailout program on schedule in December.
The Irish news, plus the fact that further aid for twice-bailed out Greece is not pressing, highlights how far the 17-nation eurozone has come since the dark days of 2009-10.
Now the spotlight and the controversy is on what comes next.
At the height of the global financial meltdown, ambitious plans to ensure that the taxpayer would no longer have to foot the bill for bailing out overextended banks made sense, along with much tighter economic policy coordination adopted by EU governments.
But as the pressure has eased and the European economy stabilized, national concerns have resurfaced, making implementation of the mooted “Banking Union” ever more difficult.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
