Names are not mentioned in the Boston Consulting survey in which Europe’s top business leaders declare the creation of continental champions their highest priority. But it’s safe to assume that UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel was among the CEOs surveyed – and that he strongly advocated for exactly such mergers. There may be more than a grain of truth to the suspicion that, when Orcel hears „We are the Champions“, he thinks of it in the singular. After all, his pan-European acquisition campaign also serves as a monument to himself.

Still, few would argue with Orcel’s claim to have given the term „cross-border merger“ a new meaning in the European banking world. He not only crosses national borders, but also refuses to be deterred by political barriers. His most recent coup – raising UniCredit’s stake in Greece’s Alpha Bank – has not encountered any such hurdles. On the contrary, the Greek government has welcomed the Italian bank’s move – unlike the German government, which brusquely rejected UniCredit’s advances toward Commerzbank.

It is, in fact, an irony of history that it is banks from Italy and Greece that are now leading the charge in creating sector champions in Europe. The institutions from the two countries that were once at the heart of the euro crisis have suddenly become attacking players on the M&A field – while German banks are still making no move to participate in this kind of Champions League.

Deutsche Bank, for instance, may consider itself a „gateway to the world“ for its clients and a „bridge to Europe“ for others. But when it comes to actual mergers, these lofty ideas seem to play no role. The bank prefers to invest in its own shares rather than in other institutions. Commerzbank insists on its independence as a goal in itself. And while savings banks and cooperative banks in Germany are merging left and right, they do so only within national borders. This maneuvering has not only pushed the German financial sector to the sidelines of the European playing field – it also sits uneasily with Germany’s self-image as a leader of the European economy. A deep-rooted mistrust of any kind of European consolidation simply doesn’t match that ambition.