Brussels, 13/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 13 July, MEPs who had been decidedly rude when he came and made his first speech to them expressed sadness at the departure of British Financial Services Commissioner Jonathan Hill.
Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany) summed up the atmosphere on the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee on Wednesday, “We didn't want you to have that job, and now that you are leaving, we don't want you to leave.”
In October 2014, the coordinators of the ECON committee unanimously summonsed Lord Hill for a second hearing before finally confirming him as Commissioner.
For the EPP group, Burkhard Balz (of Germany) said the Commissioner had acted as a real gentleman in deciding to resign after the British voted in a referendum to leave the EU. Balz criticised people who were in favour of Brexit, but decided to keep their jobs at the EP until the end of their term of office. Pervenche Bérès (S&D, France) thanked the Commissioner for his “fair play,” particularly vis-à-vis members of the eurozone (in 2014, she feared the arrival of a Financial Services Commissioner from a country that was not part of the single currency). Speaking on behalf of the ALDE and GUE/NGL, Sylvie Goulard of France and Marisa Matias of Portugal respectively also expressed their appreciation of the outgoing Commissioner.
One of the Commissioner's desires is to see the work he had started with a consultation exercise on the overall impact of financial legislation continue apace (the “call for evidence”).
At a conference at the headquarters of the Bruegel think tank on Tuesday, Lord Hill said that “whereas after 2008 the greatest threat to financial stability had been the financial crisis, over time the greater threat had become the lack of growth itself. In other words, too little risk itself became a big stability risk.”
Hill touched on the Basel Committee's incoming leverage ratio rule, suggesting that changes should be made to the requirement for banks to count collateral received from clients for central clearing purposes towards the ratio. “But at the same time, you should be prepared to deviate from the work of global standards-setting bodies like the Basel Committee if you think their conclusions are too sweeping or fail to take into account the particular circumstances of the very diverse European banking sector.”
Hill's cabinet office in transition. The head of Lord Hill's cabinet, Matthew Baldwin, was made deputy director general for mobility and transport on Wednesday 13 July, which is the only official announcement thus far. As from Saturday 16 July, the members of Hill's cabinet will come under the responsibility of Commission vice-president for the budget and human resources, Kristalina Georgieva until 30 September 2016, when their temporary contracts end. Two members of the cabinet, Lee Foulger and Mette Toftdal Grolleman, in charge respectively of Capital Market Union and financial stability, will join the cabinet of Vice-president Dombrovskis until 31 December 2016. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)