The Single Resolution Mechanism, one of the pillars of Europea's banking union platform, is coming together too slowly according to the people working to put it together. Yesterday EU economic ministers seemed to agree that the 55 billion euro fund to pay for bankruptcies needs to be spent in five years instead of ten.
But the German, Wolfgang Schäube, warned, "If 10 years is a long time, we'll go faster. But we'll also spend everything more quickly." Germany knows that the financial sector will not increase its payments within the year because it has to face ECB stress tests. And while they don't want to take money from their citizens, the Germans also know that taxpayers from bailed-out nations will pay the debt, which will slow recovery in those nations.
