Brussels, 15/11/2012 (Agence Europe) - Citizens' organisation Finance Watch is calling on European leaders to resist pressure from the financial lobby hostile to the recommendations on banks set out in the Liikanen Report (see EUROPE 10701). It says European legislators must prepare draft legislation to hive off risky trading, as recommended by the Liikanen group of experts (chaired by the governor of the Finnish Central Bank). In a press release, Finance Watch says that robust reform of the structure of banking would encourage growth and stability in the EU, failing which the planned Banking Union might even prove to be a problem for Europe. If no proper bank reform were carried out in parallel with the setting up of a bank supervisory system and a bank restructuring authority for the eurozone, then Banking Union might simply increase the moral hazard in the European banking system explains Thierry Philipponnat, Finance Watch secretary general.
At the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, national finance experts looked at the Liikanen Report recommendations. The United Kingdom recommended measures very similar to those set out in the Vickers Report to hive off retail banking in separate, highly capitalised, legal structures which would not be allowed to speculate. Backed by France, the European Commission says it is important to have a universal banking model. (MB/transl.fl)