“Together with the government and the new Seimas [parliament], Lithuania will have to decide during 2013 when it will join,” Grybauskaitė told reporters in Brussels on Thursday.
The banking union is primarily being created for the euro zone countries but EU Member States without the euro are also invited to join. The new framework was expected to be launched in 2014, but Lithuania would not yet be able to join the euro zone that year due to excessive inflation, the country’s president said.
“When more details are known, all non-euro zone countries, including Lithuania, will join most probably,” she said after arriving at the EU summit.
Even if Lithuania joined the framework, the European Central Bank (ECB) would only supervise large Scandinavian-owned banks and small banks would continue to be supervised by the Bank of Lithuania, Grybauskaitė said.
“If anything were to be applied in Lithuania, it would first of all be applicable to large Scandinavian banks since small banks would remain under direct supervision by our central bank,” Lithuania’s President said.
Some non-euro zone countries were concerned that with the banking supervision entrusted to the ECB, non-euro zone countries would have no say in decision making. According to the latest proposals, non-euro zone countries would be represented in the ECB’s supervisory board.
