Brussels, 24/02/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 23 February 2010, MEPs on the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee broadly welcomed seven draft reports on reforming the financial supervision system in Europe (see EUROPE 10075), agreeing with the rapporteurs' recommendation that a tighter, more EU-based, system should be set up to reduce risks to savers. The MEPs will be sticking to their guns when it comes to the right to scrutinise how technical rules are decided upon and the activities of the new supervisory bodies.
Merging or somehow combining the three EU financial supervision authorities (ESAs) would create an EU surveillance culture, argued Sylvie Goulard (ALDE, France). In her draft report on the ESAs, she recommends that this merging should occur in Frankfurt when the ESAs are set up under the aegis of the European Central Bank, in order to pool resources and facilitate action in the event of emergencies. Following the Liberal group's political ideas, Goulard said she wanted a single body to be set up in the longer term, should the EP and EU Council of Ministers believe this to be necessary. A single organisation or location is not mentioned in the European Parliament's initial proposals or the agreement in principle reached by the EU Council of Ministers, as the ESAs are supposed to be created in the cities where the current national regulatory committees have their headquarters, namely Paris for CERVM (securities), London for CEBS (banking) and Frankfurt for CEIOPS (insurance).
The ESAs should be able to declare a state of emergency, argued José Manuel García-Margallo y Marfil (EPP, Spain), author of a report on the ESA for banking. He added that the Council of Ministers wants the Council of Ministers to have this power, and the Commission wants the Commission to have it.
The rapporteur on the financial markets ESA, Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany) believes the new financial markets ESA should be given the power to withdraw products and ban practices, like the hedging and speculating on Greek loans. His Belgian counterpart Philippe Lamberts said there was nothing wrong with banning toxic products, as already occurs with toxic chemicals. He added that anyone claiming that creative accounting helped reduce risk should provide evidence of it. Jean-Paul Gauzès (EPP, France) said that banning toxic financial deals is an interesting idea but apart from in dictatorships, no governments would agree to carry out such measures. Olle Schmidt (ALDE, Sweden) disagreed with the idea. (M.B./transl.fl)