The committee on economic and monetary affairs of the European Parliament believes that the finalisation of the Basel III reform should not lead to a significant increase in the overall bank capital requirements, it states in a draft resolution it adopted on Thursday 10 November.
In the compromise amendments approved, the MEPs stress two key principles: - the reform should not "increase significantly overall capital requirements, while at the same time strengthening the overall financial position of European banks"; - "the revision should promote the level playing field at the global level by mitigating - rather than exacerbating - the differences between jurisdictions and banking models and not unduly penalising the EU banking model".
In the framework of negotiations underway within the Basel Committee, which is made up of the major international banking supervisors, the United States is calling for a standardised calculation method for own funds. Stressing the diversity of their banking landscape, the Europeans fear that this method would have a more expensive impact on the industry in Europe and would prefer to see internal methods used instead (see EUROPE 11635).
The day before, Danièle Nouy, the president of the Single Supervisory Board of the ECB, also stressed that it was vitally important to ensure that the final balance of the reforms does not lead to a significant increase in bank capital.
The draft resolution, which will be adopted at the November plenary session of the European Parliament, also calls upon the ECB and the European Banking Authority to provide regular reports on the negotiations underway, which are scheduled to conclude at the end of this year.
Opposition from the European Left. The Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups rejected the draft resolution. "It is a severe mistake to side with the banking lobby that capital requirements are sufficient and should not be increased further", said Sven Giegold. "The (European) banking sector is still weakly capitalised and overly complex (...). Even thinly capitalised banks continue to pay out dividends, bonuses and high wages. The problems of shadow banks and too big to fail are still not tackled seriously", he added. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)