Having already attended two meetings of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank after only four weeks in office, I think I can safely say that the job is certainly a very interesting and challenging one.
High and heterogeneous levels of NPLs are one key impediment to taking further steps towards a common deposit insurance scheme. Another stumbling block is related to sovereign exposures on banks’ balance sheets. Due to regulatory privileges, sovereign exposures are not – or only thinly – backed by regulatory capital.