Brussels, 24/09/2015 (Agence Europe) - The inter-institutional negotiations which were held on Tuesday 22 September on the proposed regulation aiming to reinforce governance in forming benchmarks have been described by all parties as “constructive”.
An agreement in principle has been found on the scope of application, the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the EU reports. This issue, along with that on the provisions on governance, will therefore now be discussed in trialogue at technical level.
The principle of proportionality remains the thorniest issue. Ahead of Tuesday's trialogue, the European Parliament proposed placing the benchmarks into four categories (critical, systemic importance, significant and others), with the requirements differing for each category. According to a Commission source, the Parliament's proposal was reasonably well received overall, as a useful starting point for discussion, but the question of thresholds decided upon by the Parliament is of concern to the Council and Commission. The threshold for significant benchmarks (€300 million) is felt to be too high, and there are fears that a number of benchmarks would remain unregulated. The next trialogue will be held on 18 October. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)