The Council of the European Union has published a proposal for a directive establishing a framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms and amending. a proposal to establish a framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms. The context for the proposal was the financial crisis which severely tested the ability of national and Union-level authorities to manage problems in banking institutions. The financial crisis has also served to demonstrate that financial markets in the Union have become integrated to such an extent that domestic shocks in one Member State may be rapidly transmitted to other Member States (page 2).