The Dynamics of Differentiated Integration and Sectoral Governance – Revisiting the Banking Case

The creation of the European Banking Union is one of the more recent cases where deepening was only possible in the form of differentiated European integration, very much driven by a crisis specific to the Eurozone. Moving beyond the institutional and legal differentiation that catches the eye, the paper examines the governance of European banking supervision at work. More specifically, it explores how and to what effect the governance framework of single supervision and resolution in the EU bridges a potential gap between EBU- and non-EBU countries. Moreover, it will look into governance devices and institutional structures used to include authorities from non-EU countries. To that end, the coordination between multiple EBU, European and non-European supervisory and resolution authorities will be analysed. The findings suggest that the concepts of horizontal and vertical differentiation, while being useful analytical lenses, do not suffice to capture the dynamics of sectoral governance at work.