All banks of the euro area will be subject to joint control mechanism since 2014, but the European Central Bank will give time for its entry into force - these are the main results of EU summit, which ended in Brussels, Euronews reports.
France and the European Commission arrived at the summit keen to run ahead with a new European bank supervisory mechanism to be in place by January, but the cautious German chancellor, Angela Merkel said she thinks baby steps are needed first: "Concerning the move towards banking supervision, we have decided to move forward with the principle that quality is more important than rapidity. This means we will not have a working banking supervision at the beginning of 2013."
According to the German Chancellor, it is necessary to develop a legal framework for the new system first and then specify time frame.
Under the new agreement, the ECB will have the right to monitor regulatory compliance levels of capital and liquidity of six thousand banks in the eurozone.
European Council President hailed the result of the summit as highly successful: "This is a small revolution, it means that we'll have only one supervisor for the whole Europe, who - to a certain extent - will replace all the national supervisors. If we had this in 2008 I don't think the crisis would have reached this level."
"The art of compromise has prevailed once again in Europe, but there is still much more that needs to be done, as the Spanish and Greek emergencies are still waiting," our special correspondent Audrey Tilv reports from Brussel.