Also envisaged is a resolution fund fed by contributions from the industry to meet any needs for capital which cannot be covered by burden-sharing exercises. Furthermore, last December the Council of the European Union reached an important consensus after several months of complex negotiations, which, taken together with the aforementioned Directive, amounts in practice to the creation of a single resolution mechanism. Further to this consensus, a bank resolution board will be set up whose scope of action will be the same as that of the single supervisory mechanism. It will have considerable freedom to act urgently in cases of restructuring or winding-up. It was also decided to set up a single resolution fund which will be progressively endowed with financial resources. The bank resolution board will be entrusted with applying resolution rules uniformly, approving restructuring and resolution plans for banks supervised directly by the ECB and determining how the resolution fund is to be used. The details of the single resolution fund are to be set forth in an intergovernmental agreement of the participating countries before March. However, the consensus reached stipulates that the fund will be financed through contributions from the European financial services industry, although the resources contributed by the banks in each jurisdiction will not be fully merged until ten years have passed. During these ten years the fund will have separate compartments funded by contributions from the banks of each country, which will be progressively mutualised year by year.
We also need to build bridges to the future and shape a recovery that makes our economies fit for the future. But bridges need solid foundations. Europe’s future must be built on strong democratic legitimacy. Europe’s citizens must be at the centre of the debate about the Europe that we want to build as we emerge from the crisis. As their elected representatives, you, together with the European Parliament, have a crucial role to play in making their voices heard. I now look forward to our debate. [1] In French: “J’ai toujours pensé que l’Europe se ferait dans les crises, et qu’elle serait la somme des solutions qu’on apporterait à ces crises.” See Monnet, J. (1976), Mémoires, Fayard, Paris. [2] In French: “[la Communauté européenne] elle-même n’est qu’une étape vers les formes d’organisation du monde de demain.” See Monnet, J., ibid., p. 617. [3] Following a significant drop in the first quarter of 2020, euro area real GDP fell by 11.8% in the second quarter, resulting in a record cumulative decline of 15.1% in the first half of the year. [4] ECB staff macroeconomic projections for the euro area, September 2020. [5] Milasi, S. et al. (2020), “  The potential for teleworking in Europe and the risk of a new digital divide”, VoxEU, 14 August. [6] Lagarde, C. (2020), “Payments in a digital world”, speech at the Deutsche Bundesbank online conference on banking and payments in the digital world, 10 September.