EU finance ministers have met to discuss the state of play of the trialogue negotiations on the proposed Regulation establishing a single resolution mechanism (the SRM Regulation). The discussion was held with a view to giving more flexibility to the Presidency of the Council of the EU (the Presidency) in the negotiations.

While not diverging from the key elements of the general approach, ministers recognised the need to give the Presidency some flexibility so that it could explore various ideas in order to identify possible options that might lead to an agreement.

The Presidency summarised the scope of such ideas as follows:

• the framing of the role of the plenary session of the single resolution board (SRB);
• a review of the thresholds for the involvement of the plenary, and of voting arrangements, especially during the initial transitional phase of the single resolution fund (SRF) to create a balanced solution for its use;
• a possible better framing of the Council’s role to limit its discretion and the grounds on which it can raise objections to the SRB’s decisions, as well as simplification and, if possible, shortening of the decision-making process;
• a more closely regulated oversight of the SRB over national resolution authorities;
• a central role for the European Central Bank in determining whether a banking institution is failing or likely to fail, while the SRB should ultimately maintain a possibility to effectively influence that decision too; and
• agreement that bail-in and not bail-out is the main guiding principle for bank resolution.

The Council hopes to reach an agreement acceptable to all parties prior to the deadline set by the European Council. The European Parliament should then be able to vote on it before the end of its current legislature in April 2014.

View Single resolution mechanism: Council reviews the state of play of the negotiations, 18 February 2014