Recital 7

(7)As a first step towards a banking union, the single supervisory mechanism established by Council Regulation (EU) No 1024/2013 ⁴ (the ‘SSM’) is to ensure that the Union's policy relating to the prudential supervision of credit institutions is implemented in a coherent and effective manner, that the single rulebook for financial services is applied in the same manner to credit institutions in the euro area Member States and those non-euro area Member States who choose to participate in the SSM (the ‘participating Member States’), and that those credit institutions are subject to supervision of the highest quality.