EU plans to rein in banks
Why doesn't the European Union have a single regulator to oversee banks? After all, there are 40 big banks which operate in several different EU countries.
The would clearly love to go down this road, but says it is "devilish difficult" to get the agreement of individual countries to back such a plan. 
What he has come up with is the idea of "a college of supervisors". It means if a bank in one country wants to do business in another the respective regulators will get together to share information.
Mr McCreevy said that finance ministers had only given a "light benediction" to this plan. As for getting them to agree to pan-European regulation, he felt the current crisis should have galvanised ministers, but it has not. "It is a desperately difficult political debate. It is not going forward, because there would not be political support for it at all."
He's also announced some other measures to make the system more stable. Banks will be stopped from lending more than a quarter of their money to one individual or business. They will also have to share more of the risk of certain financial products with their customers.
told me: "We have recognised for some time there is a need for change, a need for tightening, a need for greater prudence frankly, because what we've seen operating is not simply an American export, we've seen how these elements have developed across the world: an excess of risk-taking, frankly some would say greed, but also some poor policy and decision-making. The point about markets is that they function fine as long as there is somebody there second-guessing when risk or policy is getting a little bit out of control."
I put it to him that some would say "here we go again: more red tape, more regulations from the EU".
"Well, what is the alternative?" he replied. "We don't want deterioration in our financial system, we don't want to be any more exposed than we need to be to the contagion spread from the United States. A lot of the financial system in Europe operates across borders, so we need an overall European role to supervise it. Not to replace national regulators, but to support them, enable them to collaborate and co-operate."
Quick note to Tomireland, who is disturbed by my "non-reporting" of the European arrest warrant. It was introduced in May 2005, a few months before I got this job so it is a bit old hat as a news story. Do you mean ? I agree worth keeping an eye on.
I’m Mark Mardell, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My 
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