“The Supervisory Mechanism for banks is one of four pillars of the Banking Union. And it will come into effect in November 2014 if approved by all Member States. The implementation of the Banking Union has already been launched and that’s the fact,” Rimantas Šadžius told BNS by phone after the ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg.
Lithuania, holding the rotating presidency of the EU Council, now has a more ambitious goal – to reach common agreement on the resolution mechanism by the end of the year, he says.
“The Supervisory Mechanism was proposed approximately 13 months ago while the proposal on the resolution mechanism was only made in July. Hence Lithuania’s goal – to reach common agreement on that mechanism by the end of the year – is truly ambitious,” Šadžius said.
The Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) is one of the four key elements of the Banking Union. Lithuania, as the holder of the EU presidency, is also seeking agreement among Member States on another element of the Union – the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) – so as to open negotiations with the European Parliament by the end of this year.
Three financial groups with operations in Lithuania – SEB, Swedbank and DNB – would fall under direct supervision of the European Central Bank, which will cover the EU's 160 largest and systematically most important banks. Lithuania would automatically become part of the mechanism if it joined the euro area in 2015.
