Brussels, 22/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - MEPs are demanding that the member states change their position on a single bank resolution mechanism (SRM) to bring it fully within the “Community” fold. Their demand has been ignored thus far and the clock is ticking.
At a debate on Wednesday 22 January at the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee, attended by Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras, Corien Wortmann-Kool (EPP, Netherlands) said MEPs were concerned about the ministers' position, saying that the decision-making process that the ministers have in mind for the SRM is “complex” and gives too much power to the member states. She asked whether the Greek Presidency could confirm what had been said in trialogue talks, namely that the intergovernmental agreement on which the single resolution fund (SRF) will be based will be completed before the end of the inter-institutional talks. The EP's rapporteur, Elisa Ferreira (S&D, Portugal), said the EP wanted a sustainable agreement, but not at any price and wondered whether the ministers would change their views before the trialogue talks on Wednesday 29 January.
Stournaras said everyone wants a strong banking union with a robust legal basis. He recommended greater mutual understanding so that progress can be made, but could not officially confirm the sequence of events talked about in the trilogue meetings. He was supported by Werner Langen (EPP, Germany), who praised him for his caution over the legal basis. Germany requires the drawing up of an intergovernmental agreement on various parts of the SRF.
The ECB favours the Community Method. After meeting German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (see EUROPE 11000), the MEPs responsible for negotiating the SRM with the Council of Ministers held a meeting with Benoît Coeuré of the ECB's executive board, who told them: “The ECB supports, as a matter of principle, recourse to the Union method and thus to Union law. The recourse to an intergovernmental agreement should only be seen as a temporary solution. Robust and common resolution financing arrangements are also required: in this regard, the period of ten years for moving towards a genuinely common SRF is too long and should be shortened, possibly to five years. Also, adequate common backstop arrangements need to be established, both for the transition period and the steady state, to guarantee the credibility of the SRF and avoid a persistent or re-emergent sovereign-bank nexus. Finally, the assessment of whether a bank is failing or likely to fail should solely be in the hands of the supervisor.” (MB/transl.fl)