The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on European bank regulation and supervision: Lessons from past crises

The chapter analyzes the consequences of exogenous events such as the global crisis, the sovereign debt crisis and recently the pandemic shock on the architecture of bank supervision in Europe. The chapter points out that the fiscal and monetary policies in many European countries have evolved towards more cross-border cooperation between supervisors and that the post-2008 architecture has empowered the ECB with new significant supervisory responsibilities, in particular regarding the largest banks in the Eurozone. Thus the chapter, analyzing the causes and the consequences of these changes, focuses on the new role played by the ECB, which has to find a new balance between independence and accountability, maintaining the effectiveness of its action as bank supervisor.