France's Macron: EU summit agreed on need to speed up work on European banking union

[June 25, 2021]  PARIS (Reuters) - This week's European Union summit agreed on the need to accelerate work towards a possible European banking union, said French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday.

French President Emmanuel Macron attends European Union leaders meeting in Brussels, Belgium, June 25, 2021. Olivier Hoslet/Pool via REUTERS

Completion of the banking union, which would mean setting up a controversial common deposit insurance scheme, would sharply reduce the possibility of a major banking crisis in the 19 countries sharing the euro and in this way boost market confidence in the euro and demand for the currency.

But the issue is highly sensitive in several euro zone countries and euro zone finance ministers together with their non-euro colleagues from other EU countries have been stuck trying to agree on the deposit guarantee scheme for years.

(Reporting by Michel Rose; Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta)

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