Strasbourg, 13/12/2012 (Agence Europe) - Any strengthening of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and the banking union should take into account regional banking specificities. The president of the Committee of the Regions, Ramon Luis Valcárcel, expressed these concerns to the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, in view of the European Summit on 12-13 December. In this connection, he sent him a letter in which he stressed that, “it is essential to recognise the key role of regional banks in providing capital for SMEs and public investment projects geared towards local and regional development”.
Referring to the emerging integrated budgetary framework proposed in the roadmap on EMU, (see EUROPE 19746) the CoR president insisted to Van Rompuy that budgetary policies and fiscal governance should not compromise local and regional self-government. This is why president Valcárcel called for “the specific investment role of sub-national finance” to be taken into account and for appropriate ways to be identified to ensure that regional and local authorities are involved when further developing contractual relations between the EU/Eurozone and member states. Valcárcel said that attention must also be paid to the challenge of ensuring democratic legitimacy and accountability of the reformed EMU at all levels of governance. (MD/transl.fl)