Luxembourg, 09/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - Non-Eurozone countries have expressed their disappointment with the most recent recast of the single banking supervisory mechanism that the European Commission presented on Tuesday 9 October during the Ecofin Council. According to a European source that had participated in the discussions, the Swedish finance minister, Anders Borg declared to his counterparts that, “the unlimited changes” made do not tackle the real problems, in particular, voting rights within the future single supervisory committee at the ECB and binding mediation from the European Banking Authority in the event of disagreement between national supervisors. Arriving at the Ecofin Council he emphasised that, “we can make progress but the Commission proposal does not bring us much further than when we were in Cyprus”. Poland also expressed disappointment, whilst noting the progress that had been made in transparency related issues (document access). The United Kingdom criticised the lack of effort made with the Commission's most recent recast aimed at tackling provisions defining voting rights at the EBA. Its representative declared that this was absolutely unacceptable.
In compliance with the decisions made at the end of June by the Eurozone Summit (see EUROPE 10645), the Commission submitted a legislative package to the ECB that stipulated that from January 2013, it would confer the latter with ultimate responsibility for Eurozone banking supervision. In addition to the question of scope and of the reform application deadline, the discussions could prove difficult with regard to the fate for non-Eurozone countries involved in the future mechanism, as revealed by the informal Ecofin Council (see EUROPE 10690).
The Commissioner responsible for the internal market, Michel Barnier, said that this criticism did not means that the legislative package was unnecessary. He said that he believed that it was legitimate to find a fair governance system for the single banking supervisory mechanism. In connection with non-Eurozone country participation, he indicated that, “the solution is partly up to the ECB itself”. He also said that they needed to erect a Chinese wall to separate monetary policies from the supervisory activities carried out by the Frankfurt Institute. With regard to the EBA, it will be necessary for the EU27 to continue considering the European authority as the, “arbitrator in the single market”. The Commission hopes that if the legislator manages to respond to this criticism, countries outside the euro zone will join the mechanism, except for the United Kingdom. The Danish minister for the economy, Margrethe Vestager, concluded that, “it is good to know that the Commission document represents a small stage in a long process”. (MB/trans.fl)