The European Commission proposed new rules to rescue troubled banks on Tuesday, shortly after the sector’s upheaval in the US and Europe, but without creating a single EU deposit guarantee system, AFP reported.

The proposed text, to be discussed by member states and MEPs, aims to encourage the use of “safety nets” financed by the banking sector itself, rather than public funds, to protect depositors when I turn to small and medium-sized banks. bankrupt.

“EU financial institutions are well capitalised, highly liquid and closely supervised”, but in times of crisis governments tend to rely more on taxpayers’ money than on national sector-funded deposit guarantee schemes, the Commission said.

In the current system, medium-sized banks may face difficulties in accessing guarantee schemes.

Therefore, Brussels wants to make it easier for these institutions to access financing from these guarantee funds in order to meet the conditions necessary to protect their depositors during a crisis – a way to reduce the risk of contagion to other banks.

However, “the first and most important line of defense for banks must remain their ability to cover losses domestically” thanks to their own capital, which is subject to strict rules, Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis insisted at a press conference in Strasbourg.

More generally, the text aims to “protect the real economy from the impact of bank failures”, for example by encouraging states to transfer accounts from a failed bank to a healthy bank – “less disruptive” to customers than liquidation.

Finally, although the protection of deposits is maintained at the level of 100,000 euros per depositor and per bank, the text harmonizes the standards in the EU, extending the protection to deposits of public institutions (hospitals, schools, municipalities…), for example, and to certain types of funds (investment companies …).