These functions are not designed to protect individual banks per se. They aim to ensure confidence in deposits and their continuous fungibility with banknotes and other forms of money across the Union. Moreover, as monetary policy impulses are transmitted in part through bank lending channels, sound banks are a prerequisite for ensuring price stability.
If only for that reason, countering fragmentation in the banking system falls without doubt within our mandate. The ECB’s mandate, in its broadest sense, is based on a consensus rooted in society. Politicians receive their mandates from elections which reflect the preferences of the electorate. The ECB’s mandate, by contrast, is inscribed in a document with a constitutional status: the Treaty.