The president of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, and the president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, underlined the need for clear stipulations meant to separate monetary responsibilities from monitoring responsibilities of the European Central Bank, which will be able to intervene in any bank in the euro zone where risks are signalled. The euro zone will be able to directly re-capitalise, from the permanent aid fund, the banks facing financial problems.

The tension between the European Union’s most important economies France and Germany dominated the summit in Brussels. Paris wants the rapid implementation of a banking union to be able to rescue the banks in difficulty, while Berlin was more reticent and wants things to go slower. Siding with France are the European Commission, Spain and Italy.

They want the project to be passed before the end of 2012, so as to be able to implement it as soon as possible. On the other hand, Finland supports Germany’s position. Jose Manuel Barroso pointed out that the supervisory mechanism would also be open to all non euro-zone countries who wish to be part of this mechanism.

The Czech Republic says the project risks affecting the stability of the country’s banking market, as 95% of its banks are branches of euro-zone banks. The Romanian President, Traian Basescu, assured the European leaders in September that Bucharest would be part of the banking union. He underscored that the main reason why Romania wanted to be part of the banking union, even though it is not in the euro-zone, was that 85% of the Romanian banking market is dominated by euro-zone banks.