If post-communist countries realized marketized bank–state ties through transition and international pressure to privatize their banks with foreign capital, western Eurozone states have more recently come under pressure to follow suit. European Banking Union centralized bank supervision and introduced a single resolution board at the expense of national authority. Thus under banking union, national regulatory and supervisory forbearance was curbed; barriers to banking market entry were no longer the purview of national authorities; disproportionate bank lending to one’s own sovereign would be discouraged; and bank bondholders, creditors and depositors—i.e. market actors—paid the price for bank failures first, before governments and taxpayers. While European Banking Union put the euro on stronger foundations, it also curbed national economic policy discretion and limited tools for adjustment. Taking Italy, Portugal, Spain and Germany as examples, this chapter explains why and in what policy areas Eurozone states’ sovereignty clashed with banking union.
Only the brave: improving self-rationing efficiency among discouraged Swiss SMEs