German banks face big costs for EU bank resolution fund - Schaeuble

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Friday there was going to be "a real tug-of-war" over how much European Union member states had to contribute to the European Union's bank resolution fund, but German banks were going to be hit hard.

"It is still unclear how exactly the levy will be organised," the minister told Reuters after a news conference in Berlin, adding that the European Commission had yet to make a proposal.

EU leaders took the final step to complete a banking union on Thursday with an agency to shut failing euro zone banks. It will set up a common 55 billion euro (£46 billion) back-up fund over eight years. Germany insisted that the 18 euro zone countries should not jointly shoulder the cost of dealing with individual bank failures.

But Schaeuble said the contribution of German banks "will be high. I have always said so".

(Reporting by Klaus Lauer; Writing by Stephen Brown; Editing by Noah Barkin)