The European Commission has published a proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on Structural Measures improving the Resilience of EU Credit Institutions.  The proposed Regulation aims at further strengthening the stability and resilience of the EU banking system.  The proposal completes the financial regulatory reforms undertaken over the last few years by setting out rules on structural changes for "too big to fail banks" (TBTF).  A bank is considered TBTF when the consequence of its failure are believed to be detrimental for the financial system as a whole.  In order to prevent this risk from materialising, the proposal would impose a ban on speculative activities, such as proprietary trading i.e. trading using own money as opposed to on behalf of customers and caters for the potential separation of other risky trading activities carried out by these banks.  The proposal draws on the recommendations made by the High Level Expert Group chaired by the Governor of the Bank of Finland, the Liikanen Group.