Financial systems in financial crisis — An analysis of banking systems in the EU

This Forum aims to systematically describe and analyse the evolution of national financial systems within the EU over the past three decades. It analyses the processes of financialisation that have dominated this period as well as the causes and consequences of the financial crisis from the perspectives of five individual member states — Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain. Furthermore, policy proposals which could change the role of the financial system to better serve economic and social objectives are also put forward. The author would like to acknowledge the support of the FP7 Social Science and Humanities project FESSUD for work which underpinned this paper. However, the views in the paper are entirely those of the author. For helpful comments, the author would like to thank Nina Dodig, Trevor Evans, Eckhard Hein, Hansjörg Herr and Barbara Schmitz. Remaining errors are, of course, my own. We acknowledge financial support from the EU FP7 project FESSUD under grant agreement No. 266800, and we thank Christophe Blot for his comments. The research leading to this paper has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement No. 266800. The authors acknowledge support from the EU Framework Programme SSH.2010.1.2-1. and its collaborative project Financialisation, Economy, Society and Sustainable Development (FESSUD) and Alessandro Vercelli for fruitful discussions about the topic and paper and Alice MacKenzie for her comments on the final draft of the paper. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement no 266800 and from the Basque Government (Consolidated Research Group IT712/13). The views expressed during the execution of the FESSUD project (www.fessud.eu), in whatever form and by whatever medium, are the sole responsibility of the authors