European leaders took a step toward creating a single supervisor for banks in countries that use the euro on Friday but refused to pin down a start date.
Although the leaders meeting in Brussels said their decisions on the watchdog the single supervisory mechanism were key to shoring up lenders and eventually giving them access to loans from Europe\'s bailout fund, many observers were struggling to figure out exactly what had been achieved.
Rather than finding new measures to fight the crisis, the leaders focused on establishing a timeline for those they had already agreed to.
\"It is good for Europe that we\'ll have a single supervisory mechanism up and running in the course of 2013,\" Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, which includes the leaders of all 27 EU countries, said Friday.
Although the leaders meeting in Brussels said their decisions on the watchdog the single supervisory mechanism were key to shoring up lenders and eventually giving them access to loans from Europe\'s bailout fund, many observers were struggling to figure out exactly what had been achieved.
Rather than finding new measures to fight the crisis, the leaders focused on establishing a timeline for those they had already agreed to.
\"It is good for Europe that we\'ll have a single supervisory mechanism up and running in the course of 2013,\" Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, which includes the leaders of all 27 EU countries, said Friday.