We investigate whether the different government supportive measures (legal, fiscal and political measures) are effective in promoting ESOPs for European banks, by taking into account the different nature of the agency conflicts in widely-held and controlled banks. Our findings show empirical evidence that the effectiveness of the ESOP measures are different in controlled and widely-held banks according to the strength of the agency conflicts between insiders and outsiders. We find for controlled banks that supportive measures are effective to promote the ESOPs adoption independently of the degree of opacity, while we find that they are only effective in widely-held banks with lower degrees of opacity. We furthermore find that that the supportive measures are effective to promote ESOP in controlled banks located in countries with stronger levels of shareholder protection. For widely-held banks, the supportive measures are ineffective to promote ESOPs adoption, independently of the level of shareholder protection.