Financial integration in Europe: salient facts and figures  Let me now turn to financial integration in Europe. Overall, the degree of financial integration has progressively increased in the euro area since the introduction of the euro.
However, the financial crisis of 2007 to 2010 and the subsequent euro area sovereign debt crisis reversed this trend to some degree.4 For the reason I gave earlier, these developments have been particularly problematic for the Eurosystem. I will refer to these developments when discussing the effects that the banking union should have on more and better financial integration.