FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Union's banking union is more advanced than widely believed but it is still far from being complete, Germany's deputy finance minister said on Tuesday, adding that Europe would be able to react if a financial crisis happened.
The European Commission said last week that significant progress had been made in further reducing risk in the banking union but added that European governments must speed up work on deeper euro zone integration as much remains to be done, especially on the European deposit guarantee scheme.
Speaking at a finance summit in Frankfurt, Kukies also said the German banking sector was doing its homework and stressed that the country needed big international banks. His comments came after Deutsche Bank's attempt to create a German champion through a merger with Commerzbank failed in April.
(Reporting by Andreas Framke; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Tassilo Hummel)
