Brussels, 18/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - The EPP and S&D groups at the European Parliament do not go along with the compromise on structural bank reform drawn up in mid-November by Swedish Christian democrat Gunnar Hökmark and German social democrat Jakob von Weizsäcker.
More than six months after its failure to reach a majority negotiating position on this controversial issue (see EUROPE 11322), the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee has not held a single public debate on the draft regulation. At the end of October, Hökmark and von Weizsäcker draw up a compromise of prudential measures to ensure excessive risk-taking in a bank's investment arm would not damage retail banking (see EUROPE 11400). These measures, to be adopted by national bank supervisory bodies, comprise a significant rise in capital requirements, or possible legal separation of retail and investment banking.
The main criticism of the two MEPs' compromise, even within the EPP and S&D, is that measures laid down in EU legislation only apply to a handful of bank s in the light of the stipulated financial thresholds. In fact, only Germany's Deutsche Bank and France's BNP Paribas and Société Générale would be directly covered by them.
A close parliamentary source said, referring to the majority held at the committee by the two groups, that if the EPP and S&D were truly convinced in good faith, then there wouldn't be a problem, but as time goes on, she said people were beginning to doubt.
Von Weizsäcker seems relatively isolated at the S&D. MEPs from social democratic-government countries, such as France or Italy, do not back the compromise. The French prime minister, Manuel Valls, came forward in early November to express French doubts about the compromise, which singles out just three universal banks, although the G20 has identified a dozen big 'systemic' banks in Europe (see EUROPE 11427).
Likewise for the EPP, where German MEPs are reluctant to go along with the two MEPs' compromise. And the government of Sweden, the country where the rapporteur hails from, is reported to have carried out calculations and not be backing the draft deal.
In the light of this deadlock, nobody at the EP would hazard a guess as to when a vote might take place in committee to enable MEPs to initiate interinstitutional negotiating with the member states, which agreed on their own negotiating position before the summer break (see EUROPE 11339). “We were not able to enter into trialogues with the EP on the Banking structural reform as the EP has not been able to reach a common position, which is a very unusual thing but this is where we stand right now,” said Luxembourg's finance minister, Pierre Gramegna, at the Ecofin Council on Tuesday 8 December. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)