Ever since the First Banking Directive of 1977, efforts at integrating European financial markets have been on the European agenda. Arguably, the Single European Act (1986), freeing cross-border financial movements within the Union, provided the scene for the EMS crisis of 1992, ultimately leading to the common currency. The Great Financial Crisis (2008) and, more specifically, the sovereign debt troubles in the Euro Area’s periphery (2010-11) forced a Banking Union on the Euro Area, deemed, for political-economic reasons, simply unfeasible…