Who will decide whether to disburse loans from the ESM to the SRF?

Decisions on loans and disbursements will be taken by the ESM Board of Directors (consisting of high-level officials from the 20 euro area finance ministries) by mutual agreement and on a case-by-case basis, guided by certain criteria. Such decisions should be taken within 12 hours of the SRB’s request, but in the case of a particularly complex resolution operation, the ESM Managing Director may agree to lengthen the deadline to up to 24 hours.

The Board of Directors may take a decision under an emergency voting procedure (qualified majority of 85% of the votes cast) if the European Commission and the ECB conclude that a failure to urgently adopt a decision would threaten the economic and financial sustainability of the euro area. A similar emergency voting procedure exists since 2012 for ESM’s financial assistance instruments.