Under this process, the system of burden-sharing among the national and mutualised funds will be gradually adjusted until the national compartments disappear completely around January 2025. The complex agreement reached has yet to be accepted by the European Parliament, so there is still uncertainty as to the final design of the mechanism. Moreover, the capabilities of the mechanism will foreseeably be limited at first, since the single resolution fund is constrained by its modest size and reduced mutualisation. Furthermore, for the time being, the agreement does not include common public mechanisms for the resolution of vulnerable banks after the available private funds have all been used up. 4  BIS central bankers’ speeches  In this respect, although the new resolution rules reduce the foreseeable scope of the required external funds, provision should be made for public financial support at EU level to ensure the orderly resolution of systemic banks if necessary. For example, following the example of the US, we could consider an arrangement in which the European Stability Mechanism could provide the resources needed to the common resolution fund with a charge to future contributions from the industry. Otherwise, the single resolution mechanism would, at least in the short-to-medium term, foreseeably be insufficient to prevent banking crises from continuing to be resolved with a charge to national funds, whether public or private. That said, the agreement reached should by no means be underrated.
The four Directors-General of the ECB responsible for supervision have already been designated, one of whom is the current Director-General of Banking Supervision of the Banco de España, which is a cause of satisfaction for our institution. The selection processes for the remaining management positions will continue over the coming months. Thanks to the work by several groups of experts, two essential pieces of the future mechanism are at an advanced stage. These are, namely: the Framework Regulation that will define the supervisory function, its internal organisation and the assignment of responsibilities among the various authorities making up the mechanism; and the supervisory manual, which will precisely set out the procedures to be followed by all the members of the mechanism, including naturally the supervisory personnel of the national authorities. The ECB and the national authorities are also working on developing the comprehensive assessment of credit institutions in the participating countries, which began last November and will be completed before the ECB assumes supervisory powers. This assessment will include an asset quality review, performed with the help of auditors or external consultants, and subsequent stress tests, which will be conducted in collaboration with the European Banking Authority (EBA).