German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble: "The talks were lengthy, quite difficult and intense"
European Union (EU) finance ministers have agreed an outline plan on how to rescue troubled banks - without leaving taxpayers to face the bill.
The deal was reached early on Thursday morning after another long session of talks between the 27 EU countries.
It is seen as an important step towards the EU's goal of putting its banks on safe ground after the shocks of the credit and eurozone crises.
The rules set out who should bear the losses when a bank gets into trouble.
In future taxpayers will be among the last to shoulder losses, with banks and their creditors and shareholders to take the first hits.
After that, ordinary savers with large deposits of more than 100,000 euros (£85,000) will be the next to take losses.
If that is not enough, then national governments will be called upon to give support.
Big shiftThe Dutch Finance Minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said the outline deal marked a big change from existing procedure: "That's a major shift from the public means, from the taxpayer if you will, back to the financial sector itself which will now become for a very, very large extent responsible for dealing with its own problems."
Later on Thursday the EU's 27 heads of government will hold a summit to look at the region's financial and economic policies.
Its focus will largely be on the problem on youth unemployment, which is at rampant levels of above 50% in the worst-hit EU countries.
Agreement on how to treat damaged banks had been difficult to strike because rich countries feared a guarantee from them would leave little incentive for poorer countries' banks to behave prudently.
Wolfgang Schaeuble, the finance minister from the eurozone's richest country, Germany, said after the meeting: ``The talks were lengthy, quite difficult and intense," but described the conclusion as an "important step".
The next step is for EU governments to negotiate over the legislation with the European Parliament.
Source: BBC News - Business http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23076541#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
