LUXEMBOURG, Oct 7: The European Union battled on Tuesday to protect people’s savings by more than doubling deposit guarantees to at least 50,000 euros in its first joint action against the global financial firestorm.

Desperate to restore confidence in the banking system, European finance ministers also vowed to ride to the rescue of stricken big banks but reserved the right to kick out their failed executives without their ‘golden parachutes’.

“Our imperative is to protect depositors and naturally not executives of financial companies, especially those that took excessive risks or bad decisions,” French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said.

“When state interventions are necessary they will be conducted in the taxpayer’s interest and they will ensure that executives who cause problems bear the consequences,” she said after chairing a meeting in Luxembourg.

In the first concrete joint action to protect the general public against the financial crisis, the ministers agreed to increase minimum bank deposit guarantees to 50,000 euros ($67,500) from 20,000 euros currently.

The agreement fell short of the 100,000 euros that had been mooted prior to the meeting, reflecting concerns in poorer Eastern European countries that would have struggled to meet that obligation

“There is a whole series of countries — I would say the majority — which (shared) our preference to set a minimum of 100,000 euros,” Spanish Finance Minister Pedro Solbes said.—AFP