This article provides a brief legal history of the Banking Union since the
first steps towards a single financial market in the mid-1970s. It identifies four
phases of legal and institutional evolution before the Banking Union. While
reflecting the spirit of the time in the approach to market integration, each phase is
defined by the equilibrium reached between the expansion of European competences
and the safeguarding of national sovereignty. The transition from an equilibrium
to another was made by introducing legal and institutional innovations to
deepen integration. Such innovations were often at the boundaries of what could be
achieved under the Treaty. The Banking Union, which comprises thus far the Single
Supervisory Mechanism and the Single Resolution Mechanism, follows the same
pattern. Its design is the outcome, on the one hand, of the legal possibilities offered
by the Treaty and, on the other, of the tension between European competences and
national sovereignty. As concluded at the end, it encapsulates many of the trends in
European integration since the financial crisis erupted in 2007.

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• The Legal History of the Banking Union