If only one didn’t have to get from here to there. As so often with EU proposals, banking supervision plans – which would make the European Central Bank the ultimate prudential supervisor for about 6,000 eurozone banks – have a high-level logic. Bank sector risk would be managed with less scope for domestic political indulgence. The nexus between sovereign debt issuance and local bank support, a large factor in the eurozone crisis, should be lessened. Pan-European schemes for dealing with failing banks and protecting depositors could become simpler to enforce. All of which would make the banking landscape less scary.

But implementation on anything like the aggressive timetable suggested – all banks under ECB aegis by 2014 – is fanciful. Already, some obstacles are obvious, such as Germany’s desire to retain oversight of its politically sensitive savings banks. Berlin wants to restrict ECB supervision to the eurozone’s 20-25 biggest institutions. True, with the ECB’s new role covering eurozone banks only, difficulties for the UK and other “euro-outs” are lessened. But any technical tweaks that enhance Frankfurt’s clout vis a vis national supervisors are still likely to raise hackles. The proposals, meanwhile, will require national supervisors and the ECB to co-operate extensively: risking a “blame game” if things were to go wrong. And then there are issues of ECB accountability. Having officials answer questions in the European parliament may seem very remote once a local banking crisis erupts.