The Bracken column is named after Brendan Bracken, the founding editor of The Banker in 1926 and chairman of the modern-day Financial Times from 1945 to 1958.There is a good deal of support for Jacques de Larosière’s February 2009 report on how to 'repair' the EU's financial supervisory and regulatory structures, balancing just enough centralisation with national safeguards to get widespread support. But he barely considers the key question of who will provide funds to tackle a banking crisis if the decisions to save or let a bank go affect more than one country. While funding is a domestic problem, it is also a domestic political tool to be shaped in line with national objectives, national priorities and national beneficiaries.