The EU’s new bank bailout agency: a preview

Barnier, standing at right, may be in for another tussle with Germany's Wolfgang Schäuble.

With Brussels gearing up for tomorrow’s much-anticipated unveiling of the European Commission’s proposal for a new EU agency to take over responsibility for bailing out and restructuring failing banks, we thought it was as good a time as any to post the outline of the plan presented to commissioners last month.

As we reported in today’s dead-tree edition of the FT, the Commission’s legislative proposal that is to be agreed at Wednesday’s meeting of the college is not much different from the eight-page blueprint (read it here) presented by Michel Barnier, the commissioner in charge of financial regulations, and José Manuel Barroso, the commission president.

Fellow Brussels Blogger Alex Barker has written extensively about the outline both for the FT and the Brussels Blog, but it will serve as a good comparison to what comes out tomorrow since the German government has made clear it is unhappy with key elements of the original outline – particularly its contention that a “network of national resolution authorities and funds” is “not sufficient”.