The EU is edging towards a common mechanism for rescuing problem banks, in a drive to avoid any repetition of taxpayer-funded bailouts.
EU finance ministers finished marathon talks early on Wednesday – but they will try again next week to reach a deal on the eve of an EU summit.
Bank failures triggered the eurozone financial crises that struck the Republic of Ireland, Spain and Cyprus.
The new rescue blueprint would involve transferring powers to a new EU agency.
There are arguments over the future scope of that agency’s powers – and the plan still has to be agreed with the European Parliament.
It is not yet clear how the new arrangement would affect business in the City of London, by far the biggest financial centre in the EU.
A common eurozone rescue fund would not bail out UK banks like Northern Rock, which nearly collapsed in 2007. Yet many banks in London do most of their business in the eurozone.
“We have come a long way,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said. The ministers agreed that in future the burden of bailing out a troubled bank should fall not on taxpayers but on the investors and creditors, he said.
Under the plan, an EU Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) would be developed over 10 years, with a joint rescue pot of up to 55bn euros (