Salvatore Rossi: Banking Union - experience so far and future prospects

Remarks by Mr Salvatore Rossi, Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy and President of the Institute for the Supervision of Insurance (IVASS), at the Wolpertinger Conference, Modena, 30 August 2018.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

1. Rationale for the Banking Union

Banking Union (BU) in the euro area is the latest step in a long journey.

The project for an integrated and unified Europe was designed right after the Second World War and was ambitious but pragmatic: ambitious in the ultimate objective of ensuring peace and prosperity to the European people after centuries of bloodshed; pragmatic because an explicit choice was made to start the process with the economy, instead of the much more challenging political sphere. Still, the political value of the project was clear from the beginning. Monnet called it its 'sense of direction'.