Europe's sovereign debt crisis and the accompanying national bank crises in the European Union brought bank regulation and supervision to the top of the EU policy agenda. In a few short years, we have witnessed a 'great leap forward' for European integration marked by over a dozen pieces of EU legislation shaping the operation of banks, rules on bank capital, reconfigured supervisory agencies, and Banking Union. The significance of these measures lies however, in the fact that they constitute the most dramatic transfer of policy-making powers to the European level since the start of Economic and Monetary Union in 1999. This volume addresses the three main political battles behind the adoption of these new regulatory and supervisory policies. First, it examines divisions among states, both according to their domestic institutional structures, including distinct financial systems, as well as their creditor or debtor status in the crisis. Second, it studies the battle over national versus supranational jurisdiction. Third, it explores the conflictual process of policy learning and the activation of epistemic communities who claim competence to address the crisis. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal West European Politics.

Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and the accompanying national bank crises in the European Union brought bank regulation and supervision to the top of the EU policy agenda. In a few short years, we have witnessed a ‘great leap forward’ for European integration marked by over a dozen pieces of EU legislation shaping the operation of banks, rules on bank capital, reconfigured supervisory agencies, and Banking Union. The significance of these measures lies however, in the fact that they constitute the most dramatic transfer of policy-making powers to the European level since the start of Economic and Monetary Union in 1999. This volume addresses the three main political battles behind the adoption of these new regulatory and supervisory policies. First, it examines divisions among states, both according to their domestic institutional structures, including distinct financial systems, as well as their creditor or debtor status in the crisis. Second, it studies the battle over national versus supranational jurisdiction. Third, it explores the conflictual process of policy learning and the activation of epistemic communities who claim competence to address the crisis. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal West European Politics.

The establishment of Banking Union represents a major development in European economic governance and European integration history more generally. Banking Union is also significant because not all European Union (EU) member states have joined, which has increased the trend towards differentiated integration in the EU, posing a major challenge to the EU as a whole and to the opt-out countries. This book is informed by two main empirical questions. Why was Banking Union - presented by proponents as a crucial move to 'complete' Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) - proposed only in 2012, over twenty years after the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty? Why has a certain design for Banking Union been agreed and some elements of this design prioritized over others? A two-step explanation is articulated in this study. First, it explains why euro area member state governments moved to consider Banking Union by building on the concept of the 'financial trilemma', and examining the implications of the single currency for euro area member state banking systems. Second, it explains the design of Banking Union by examining the preferences of member state governments on the core components of Banking Union and developing a comparative political economy analysis focused on the configuration of national banking systems and varying national concern for the moral hazard facing banks and sovereigns created by euro level support mechanisms.

This volume explores the involvement of the European Union in the exercise of core state powers such as foreign and defense policy, public finance, public administration, and the maintenance of law and order.