Brussels, 15/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 9 July, the European Parliament and ECB continued their negotiations on an inter-institutional cooperation agreement for when the common bank supervision mechanism, with the ECB at its heart, comes on stream in the autumn of 2014.
Three questions remain to be settled after the most recent talks by MEPs Sharon Bowles (ALDE, United Kingdom), Marianne Thyssen (EPP, Belgium) and Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany), on the one side, and ECB Vice-President Vitor Costâncio, on the other. The three issues are the commitment to be made by the ECB to provide the EP with additional information about its bank supervisory work; the chance of MEPs getting to see confidential information before a formal investigation is launched into a bank; and the selection process of the chair and vice-chairs of the supervisory committee, over which the EP has been granted the right of scrutiny.
German MEPs will need to show at home that the transfer of powers from Germany to Europe is accompanied by additional democratic controls, explains a source at the European Parliament, describing the ECB as being reluctant to promise very much at all, on the grounds of its independence when it comes to monetary policy.
A new round of talks may take place before the end of the summer. It does not look as though agreement on cooperation will need to be complete before the EP gives its opinion on the draft legislation to set up the bank supervision mechanism but, if it votes in September, the EP would lose the power to apply pressure. (MB/transl.fl)