The December 2012 agreement on EU bank supervision is a good first step towards an effective banking union.

In December 2012 European finance ministers reached an agreement that will create a single European system of bank supervision, with the European Central Bank in charge of directly overseeing some of Europe’s largest banks. Jacopo Carmassi, Carmine Di Noia and Stefano Micossi welcome the agreement as a good first step towards a European banking union and discuss a number of critical issues on which the ECOFIN compromise has significantly improved the European Commission proposal.