performers subject to a central authority, and will contribute with knowledge of national, regional and local banking markets. the intensity of centralised supervision will be the highest for those institutions deemed systemically important. but also for these institutions, close cooperation with national authorities on daily activities will remain. the role and responsibilities of national supervisors banks are considered to be large when their total assets exceed eur 40 billion or, for smaller countries, when they constitute the largest domestic bank. bis central bankers ’ speeches will increase when going down the dimensional scale, to banks of predominantly national or local relevance. the single supervisory mechanism should also strengthen the single european market. therefore, all member states, also the ones that have not adopted the euro, should have the possibility of participating in the single supervisor. i am confident that the proper legal framework that serves this objective can be identified and adopted. how european banks can benefit from a single supervisor i have touched on the elements needed for the new authority to function successfully. let me now address what i see as the main implications for banks. a strong area - wide supervisor, capable of acting quickly and effectively, can restore and uphold business confidence in all banks, regardless of their location. it can therefore contribute to a revival of interbank and credit markets. second, the single supervisor should ensure homogeneous supervision, convergence of practices, a level playing field and therefore a reduction in banks ’ compliance costs. an important element to achieve convergence is the single rulebook that the eba is developing. but ensuring convergence of regulation is not enough. supervisory practices also need to converge. the envisaged creation of a single supervisory handbook by the eba is complementary to this approach. best practices should become standard practices. the single supervisory handbook should also ensure that in cases where banks are supervised in a decentralised manner within the system, practices are consistent across countries. third, the single supervisor will more easily identify cross - country linkages and exposures, and therefore contribute to a reduction of systemic risk. the next steps towards a financial union the establishment of a single supervisory mechanism would represent a major step towards a financial union. but in case we were in need to resolve financial institutions, we want to be able to do so without taxpayer money and without disrupting the payments system, even in the case of systemically important institutions. for that we need a common resolution regime and an independent european resolution authority. the existing legislative proposal on bank recovery and resolution is a development in the right direction, and the ec

##gotiators in europe. and in garret ’ s case it took the form of a consistent advocacy of the supranational executive mechanisms of the eec, in particular the commission, over the intergovernmental, as represented most evidently in the council of ministers and then in the european council. convinced that the commission has generally been guided in its preparation of legislation by a sense of the european common good, garret wrote in 2002 that he could not “ in fact recall any case where … ireland ’ s interests have been seriously prejudiced by proposals brought forward by the commission, and [ he could ] recall many cases where our interests have in fact been safeguarded by that body ”. from the start, for garret, preventing the emergence of a directoire of the largest countries dominating agenda setting and decisions for the union was a firm objective. given the recent fashion in some quarters of denigrating the elaboration of the structures of europe, and of calling for an unwinding back to intergovernmentalism, it is worth bearing garret ’ s perspective in mind. bis central bankers ’ speeches it was, for garret, not just a question of restraining the largest countries. there was also the consideration that summit meetings are not technically efficient or safe as ways of reaching complex decisions. in the 1980s, the european council, garret wrote, could be “ chaotic and ultimately very dangerous ”. to be sure, some early initiatives aiming at strong central decisions were impractical and unnecessary, and were sensibly rolled back whether in the name of subsidiarity or the principle of mutual recognition. ( this is often referred to as the principle of cassis de dijon – a key component not only of european trade law, but also of one of garret ’ s favourite predinner drinks, kir royale ). the first banking directive, for example, hoped to resolve disputes on bank licensing by establishing the principle that each member state ’ s bank regulation system was to be taken as good enough to allow cross - border banking into any member state from any other. somewhat ironically, it was at maastricht that subsidiarity was enshrined in the treaty. ironically, because maastricht also, of course, introduced that most centralising of treaty structure, the single currency, rather over - grandly dubbed economic and monetary union. while maastricht retained the national central banks, and built a structure where