When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Germany

EU Approves Joint Oversight Of Eurozone Banks

FRANCE 24 (France), CNN(USA)

Worldcrunch

FRANKFURT – European Union finance ministers have agreed on a deal giving the European Central Bank (ECB) new powers to supervise eurozone banks.

This agreement came early Thursday after the ministers held talks for more than 14 hours in Frankfurt following months of tense Franco-German divisions. All finance ministers from the European Union’s 27 countries agreed to hand the ECB direct oversight of at least 150 of the euro zone’s biggest bank.



The ECB will also be able to intervene with smaller lenders and borrowers at the first sign of trouble, reports France 24.

"This is a big first step for banking union," EU Commissioner Michel Barnier said. "The ECB will play the pivotal role, there’s no ambiguity about that."

The deal will indeed give the ECB the direct responsibility for banks with assets of more than 30 billion euros, or that represent more than a fifth of a state's national output.

The supervision plan is seen as the first step towards a eurozone banking union designed to reshape confidence, push cross-border bank lending and bring down high borrowing costs for peripheral banks, reports CNN.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, Sweden and other non-euro countries have won coveted safeguards to check the power of the ECB and will therefore maintain some influence over technical standards applying to all EU banks.

"We have reached the main points to establish a European banking supervisor that should take on its work in 2014," said German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

European Union leaders, who meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, are now expected to give it their full political backing.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Geopolitics

Senegal's Democratic Unrest And The Ghosts Of French Colonialism

The violence that erupted following the sentencing of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison left 16 people dead and 500 arrested. This reveals deep fractures in Senegalese democracy that has traces to France's colonial past.

Image of Senegalese ​Protesters celebrating Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Protesters celebrate Sonko being set free by the court, March 2021

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

PARIS — For a long time, Senegal had the glowing image of one of Africa's rare democracies. The reality was more complicated than that, even in the days of the poet-president Léopold Sedar Senghor, who also had his dark side.

But for years, the country has been moving down what Senegalese intellectual Felwine Sarr describes as the "gentle slope of... the weakening and corrosion of the gains of Senegalese democracy."

This has been demonstrated once again over the last few days, with a wave of violence that has left 16 people dead, 500 arrested, the internet censored, and a tense situation with troubling consequences. The trigger? The sentencing last Thursday of opposition politician Ousmane Sonko to two years in prison, which could exclude him from the 2024 presidential elections.

Young people took to the streets when the verdict was announced, accusing the justice system of having become a political tool. Ousmane Sonko had been accused of rape but was convicted of "corruption of youth," a change that rendered the decision incomprehensible.

Keep reading...Show less

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, then $2.90 per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch

The latest