Reviving financial markets – a critical assessment of the single resolution mechanism

The creation of the Banking Union, set to be an integrated financial framework for the Eurozone, should be better understood as part of a larger process of governing through financial markets, where policy-makers resort to market-based instruments and policies for governance purposes, thus forming an alignment with the interests of financial elites. This paper assesses the Single Resolution Mechanism and highlights overlooked aspects of its design and decision-making process that are actively strengthening and further integrating market-based finance in the European banking system. The resolution framework and its underlying conditionalities imposed by the limited public intervention toolkit and the European State Aid regime are promoting banking capital concentration and the marketization of more traditional banking systems. Meanwhile, the discretionary decisions imposed by the European technocratic body reinforces the integration agenda, with often detrimental effects for the member states of the Southern Periphery. While the Banking Union has the overall goal of financial stability and increased convergence between member states, the outcomes of the Single Resolution Mechanism point to an increase in market-based finance and riskier business models at the expense of smaller and more traditional banking systems, fostering too-big-to-fail institutions and further deepening the already rooted intra-euro divergences.