For many years, EU institutions – from the EU Commission to the ECB and the ESM – have been campaigning not only to harmonize national deposit guarantee schemes, but also to pool them. And for many years, the German government has been stalling these efforts – to counter the feared communitization of risks and to stand up for savings banks and cooperative banks that fear for their institutional protection. The political battle of attrition had become so tiring that it seemed as if the EU would abandon its efforts. Hardly anyone mentioned the acronym Edis for the European Deposit Protection Scheme anymore. And the CMDI package (for crisis management and deposit insurance) quickly stalled. But savings banks and Volksbanks should be warned.

As if they had colluded (or perhaps they have), EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness, ECB Banking Supervisor Claudia Buch and the EU's top bank resolution authority Dominique Laboureix are pushing for rapid progress on the CMDI. And with arguments that could catch on with members of the European Parliament just as much as with some EU partners. Last year, for example, it was a relief that EU banks did not allow themselves to be infected by Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse. At the same time, the shock of how quickly a bank run can develop in the online world was deeply felt.

The fact that new risks such as cyber attacks, geopolitical upheaval, or sudden changes in interest rates pose enormous problems for institutions such as real estate banks should also increase the willingness of the co-legislators to revisit the question of how security systems can be organized even more robustly. In other words: Even if many of the arguments for and against pooling financial resources for gentle bank resolution and reliable savings protection have not changed, the smouldering fear of new banking crises ensures that the struggle for deposit insurance is far from over. And in Brussels, some political players appear to be highly motivated again.