Brussels, 06/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 10 November, European finance ministers will draw up a balance sheet of practical progress on the bank resolution arm of Banking Union in the eurozone and will discuss proposals to boost economic and monetary union (EMU).
Finance ministers of the eurozone on Monday evening, followed by all EU28 finance ministers on Tuesday, will discuss bridge financing for the Single Resolution Fund, the financial arm of Banking Union which is due to have €55 billion on 1 January 2016 (see separate article), but no agreement is expected ahead of the Ecofin Council meeting in December.
The European Commission will inform the Council about progress in transposing directives to harmonise bank restructuring and wind-up schemes (BRRD) (see EUROPE 11416) and deposit (savings) guarantee schemes (DGS) (see EUROPE 11416). The transposition is being closely monitored ahead of the presentation, probably on Tuesday 24 November, of a European reassurance system for member states' deposit guarantee systems.
EMU. Ministers will hold an initial exchange of views on recent Commission proposals to boost economic and monetary union, including rationalising the European Semester budget review process, creating a European Budget Committee and national competitiveness authorities, and unified representation of the eurozone at the IMF (see EUROPE 11415).
In preparatory talks among Council experts, some countries, such as Germany, expressed concern about the risk of a weakening of the eurozone's influence at the IMF, but Italy and France called for rapid agreement so that unified representation can come on stream in 2016.
The ministers will adopt a conclusions document on the Commission's action plan to establish a Capital Market Union (CMU) by 2019 (see EUROPE 11400 and 11399). According to a draft document seen by this newsletter, they will list priorities including: - rapid adoption of the draft regulation laying down identification criteria for safe securitised products; -diversifying sources of finance for businesses, especially small businesses (revising the 'prospectus' directive); -publishing a Green Paper at the end of the year on retail financial services; - assessing the cumulative impact of changes in financial regulations since 2008. The Commission will be asked to assess the impact of decisions on the equivalence of non-EU legislation in the financial field and report back every six months on progress in work on CMU.
The Ecofin Council will also adopt a conclusions document on issues relating to financing the process of adapting to climate change ahead of the UN climate summit (see separate article).
In the fiscal domain, the ministers will annul without debate Directive 2003/48 on the taxing of savings income. Several EU ministers have asked for the directive to be annulled as it duplicates the OECD rules on the automatic exchange of information that were incorporated into European legislation in Directive 2014/107 on administrative cooperation, which is due to come into force on 1 January 2016, except in Austria, which has been granted a derogation whereby it can apply the rules a year later than the other member states.
The eleven countries wishing to levy a financial transactions tax (FTT) will meet up on the fringes of the Ecofin Council (see separate article).
Finally, on Tuesday morning, the minsters will meet their counterparts from the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland). (Original in French by Mathieu Bion and Elodie Lamer)