EU SUMMIT: Merkel wins again

Remember this? It was the EU summit in June, in whose immediate aftermath the widely held view was that Angela Merkel had caved in.

As the days went by it emerged that Germany had conceded little to the eurozone's spendthrift south after all.

It's important because there was a lot of mention at this European Council of that one in June.

This time, despite attempting to make it look like they had made considerable progress, leaders did little other than to restate their June commitment to a single banking supervisor for the eurozone (and whoever else wants to take part – and, by the way, that is even less certain now too).

The only decision to come out of this summit was to confirm the end-of-2012 target set by the European Commission when it got round to formally making the proposal at the start of September.

In fact, leaders even watered that down, by committing themselves merely to agreeing a "legal framework" by then, rather than full completion.

Will they have agreed on all the details by then? Will they have allayed the substantial concerns of the non-eurozone countries that want their voice heard? Will they have successfully avoided the hurdles put in by the European Parliament?

It's very doubtful.

So when it looks like Merkel has yielded to France and the rest of the southern eurozone club, by giving her consent to swift approval to the bank supervision plan, it's time to think again. The commitment to the 1 January 2013 deadline means very little.

Germany is still reluctant to see all its banks supervised at EU-level. There is no agreement yet on when direct capitalisation of struggling banks can begin. Merkel has ruled out allowing direct capitalisation for existing problems (re-opening another commitment made in June). Countries in the eastern EU and Scandinavia have significant and varied concerns that they want tackled before they think of joining up.

Just what was the progress again?