First, we have spent too much time and energy on protracted discussions on prerequisites and pre-conditions, such as a full EDIS, itself pre-conditioned by sovereign de-risking. Second, we should not focus on the creation of new instruments and their financing, but start by making existing ones work better. Third, in order to move beyond political divisions, we need to abandon the sequential approach in which the issues are discussed one after another, so that the smallest obstacle can bring the whole process grinding to a halt. I would like to call for simultaneous, parallel movements on several fronts and to broaden the scope of possible action. While welcoming the ambition of the Eurogroup’s “package” and its President, such a pragmatic method of small and parallel steps could help to move forward again. None of these steps is sufficient, but each of them taken separately would be welcome. Or if you prefer a restaurant analogy, call this proposal “à la carte” rather than a “set menu”… bearing in mind that at the end our lunch must be just as substantial and significant. II. Four pathways towards reigniting the Banking Union Building on this approach, I would like to share with you four possible and broader pathways towards a stronger Banking Union. 1. Moving beyond home/host issues. On this topic, I would like to start by issuing a wake-up call on the effective implementation of cross-border liquidity waivers within the union, as prescribed by the European legislation. They remain far too limited in practice.
Chart 19: Gender pay gap Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition time series  Per cent Unaccounted for  Accounted for  Gender pay gap  35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0  1997  1999  2001  2003  2005  2007  2009  2011  2013  2015  2017  2019  Source: ONS Labour Force Survey and Bank of England calculations. Note: A positive gender pay gap in this chart indicates that women earn less than men. Looked at regionally, although the unconditional gender pay gap is relatively stable over the sample in London, once we allow for compositional effects the picture is more promising. The unexplained (“pay bias”) component of pay has fallen over time in London, reaching 5.5% by the end of the sample. Outside London, the gender pay gap has also been on a downward trend, driven by both explained and unexplained factors. Next we implement the same methodology for the ethnicity pay gaps.10 Chart 20 shows the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition of the ethnicity pay gap over the full sample. The conditional ethnicity pay gap averages a relatively modest 5% over the sample, smaller than for gender. This is no longer the case once we account for compositional effects. These point to higher, rather than lower pay, for ethnic minorities. Specifically,  10  The share of the ethnic minority population has been increasing over time in our sample from approximately 4% in 1994 to 10% in 2019.