Eurozone finance ministers have agreed on a long-awaited pact on how to deal with failing banks in the region.
It aims to create a 55bn euro ($75bn; £46bn) fund – financed by the banking industry, over the next 10 years.
The fund would be backed by a new agency, which will decide on how to deal with failing banks.
European leaders – who meet at a summit on Thursday and Friday – want to sign off on a deal so that this banking union can start in 2015.
The deal is part of wider efforts by the region’s economies towards building a banking union as they look to avoid taxpayer-funded bank bailouts.
However, there is still disagreement over how banks will be wound up or re-capitalised in the early years while the new arrangements for banking union are taking shape.
