EU finance ministers fail to agree banking supervisor

A clash between Wolfgang Schäuble and Pierre Moscovici, the finance ministers of Germany and France, has prevented an agreement among the European Union's finance ministers on the powers the European Central Bank should be given to supervise the eurozone's banks.  

A meeting of finance ministers in Brussels broke up without result this afternoon (4 December). The ministers will meet again on Wednesday next week (12 December), one day before EU leaders begin a two-day summit.

The leaders had last June tasked the ministers with drawing up plans for a single banking supervisor (essentially a new department at the ECB) by the end of the year. But the negotiations have deepened a rift between France, which wants the ECB to supervise all banks in the eurozone, and Germany, which wants to limit supervision to banks that pose a systemic risk or that are receiving government assistance.  

The role of EU member states such as Sweden or Hungary that do not use the euro as their currency but are financially dependent on the eurozone is another unresolved issue.