Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at 5th ECB Forum on Banking Supervision “Europe: banking on resilience” in Frankfurt, Germany

Frankfurt, 30 November 2023

It is a pleasure to welcome you to the fifth ECB Forum on Banking Supervision.

Ten years ago, on 15 October 2013, the EU Council approved the regulation launching the Single Supervisory Mechanism. It was the most significant step in European integration since the introduction of the euro. And there were two main reasons for taking it.

First, it would lead to stricter and more uniform supervision – a single supervisor enforcing a single set of rules for a single banking market.

That would, in turn, make it possible to establish a true banking union, with a common safety net. And a banking union would strengthen the monetary union by ensuring that bank deposits were seen as equally safe everywhere.

As Andrea Enria eloquently put it, “only unified supervision and an integrated safety net can make sure that one euro…