European finance ministers were due to roll their sleeves back up on Friday following a trouble-free summer, however no new polemic was expected ahead of delicate elections in heavyweight Germany.
Their two days of informal talks in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius were set to be overshadowed, however, by simmering concerns about the eurozone’s problem countries.
Bailout recipients Greece, Ireland and Portugal are all expected to need some form of further support in the future, though more loans have been ruled out so far.
Slovenia was also back in the news this week, with the German newspaper Handelsblatt reporting that the European Central Bank (ECB) is pushing the country to turn to the eurozone’s bailout fund for help. Slovenia has been struggling to fix its banking sector.
Its finance minister is expected to brief his 16 eurozone counterparts when they hold their informal discussions on Friday morning, an EU official said on condition of anonymity.
“There will be no major decisions,” he predicted of the meeting.
“It doesn’t mean that the (economic) crisis is over – by no means – but I think we have moved quite a way when you compare it to half a year, a year ago.
“Any decisions will have to wait until after the German vote on September 22,” analysts at the ING bank predicted.
The eurozone ministers are additionally due to tackle the thorny subject of a crisis-thwarting banking union for their currency area, which is considered key to restoring confidence in the bloc.
One potential hurdle was overcome on Thursday, when the European Parliament finally gave its go-ahead to the first pillar of the banking union – a single supervisor under the auspices of the ECB to watch out for trouble among lenders.
But the second pillar, a eurozone-wide scheme to wind down troubled banks, is proving far trickier. European Union officials have been pushing the measure as key to shield taxpayers from bailouts, but Germany is among those applying the brakes.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has long warned that he doesn’t think there currently is a legal basis for anything more than a network of national resolution authorities.
Berlin believes that its case has been strengthened by a new opinion from the EU governments’ legal experts, who, according to the Financial Times daily, expressed concerns about the wind-down scheme – notably its effect on the “budget authority” of member states.
The finding is in line with the “central legal concerns” of the German government, the Finance Ministry said on Thursday.
The banking union plans will also be taken up by the 28 finance ministers of the wider EU on Friday afternoon.
The bloc’s economic outlook, better credit access for small and medium enterprises, and the fight against tax evasion are also on the agenda for their talks, which will go into Saturday morning.
The meetings are being held in Lithuania because the country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.