EU ministers baulk at banking reform
EU finance ministers on Thursday again dampened expectations on completing major banking reforms in Europe, with big divisions between Germany and Italy on how to move forward. "We must never lose hope. I don't hide from you that it's a difficult negotiation," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, as he arrived for talks in Luxembourg. At the meeting, ministers were supposed to finalise a timetable for completing the EU's banking union, a major step in advancing European economic unity that was launched in the heart of the financial crisis. The missing piece of the project is the creation of a common European deposit insurance that would cast a continent-wide safety net for customers hit by failing banks. Germany has long resisted the idea, however, with public opinion dead set against seeing government money going to save depositors in other European countries. In exchange for giving ground on the issue, Germany and others are demanding that countries like Italy decouple the stability of their banking systems from holdings in national debt. This would address something known as the "doom loop", where banks in Europe are allowed to hold sovereign debt bonds as super-safe...