Brussels, 11/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 10 September, the presidents of the European Parliament (EP)and European Central Bank, Martin Schulz and Mario Draghi, came to an interinstitutional agreement on cooperation and exchange of information in the future single bank supervisory system.
“The ECB has accepted EP demands for 'a comprehensive and meaningful record of proceedings' when it discusses bank supervision”, said a spokesman for the ADLE Group at the EP, Neil Corlett, on Tuesday evening (see EUROPE 10918 and 10917). “To ensure a sound European banking supervision we needed to make it democratically accountable”, said the head of the ADLE Group, Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, adding: “In this way we ensured that the ECB's monetary responsibility and credibility will not be weakened”.
The Greens/EFA Group also welcomed the agreement on the EP's role in the ECB's work as bank supervisor, probably from October 2014 onwards. “Parliament is now set to endorse this historic banking supervision legislation, which is the first pillar in the new European banking union”, said Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA, Belgium) in a press release. The EP's vote on Thursday will set in stone the functioning of the single bank supervision system.
The Greens say the key points of the interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament and the ECB are: a) the ECB must submit the most important information from the minutes of the Board of Supervisors to the European Parliament; b) if the Governing Council of the ECB rejects a decision of the Board of Supervisors, the President of the European Parliament or the chairperson of the relevant committee must be informed; c) the Chair of the Single Supervisory Mechanism must be appointed by the Parliament and the Council, and the Parliament can initiate the dismissal of the Chair; d) the vice chair (a member of the ECB Governing Council) must also be approved by the Parliament; e) the ECB has to answer oral and written questions by the European Parliament - if certain points need to be kept confidential, in camera discussions are possible; f) if the Parliament initiates inquiries the ECB has to cooperate just as in a committee of enquiry, making scrutiny much easier for the Parliament; g) the ECB must inform the Parliament about the supervisory activities regularly. (MB/transl.fl)