New Rules

BRUSSELS, June 27, 2013 (AFP) - European finance ministers on Thursday agreed a draft deal on new rules for bank rescues that will only allow bailouts by taxpayers in exceptional cases and shift the burden onto bank owners, creditors and large depositors.









The Irish presidency said it hoped the new rules would be finalised by early next year at the latest and the plan is that they would then come into effect from 2018.

"This is very important for financial stability in the European Union," French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told reporters as he came out of the talks.

His Dutch counterpart Jeroen Dijsselbloem said: "If a bank gets in trouble we will now throughout Europe have one set of rules on who pays the bill.

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"The financial sector itself will now to a very very large extent become responsible for dealing with its own problems," he said.

Ministers stressed that bank shareholders and bondholders would be responsible first, followed by depositors with more than 100,000 euros (0,000).

The measures, which still have to be adopted by the European Parliament, are aimed at preventing future banking crises and quelling anger over giant public bailouts of lenders by many European countries.

"Our aim is to have a common approac