The examination of the draft report on Banking Union by Sander Loones (ECR, Belgium) at the committee on economic and monetary affairs of the European Parliament on Thursday 9 November shed light on the MEPs' differing assessments of the progress made in 2017 towards completing Banking Union.
The draft report, which notes legislative developments occurring in 2017 in the field of supervision, resolution and deposit guarantees, was described by some MEPs as too “vague”. The rapporteur's intention of staying “as impartial as possible” ended up earning him criticism from his colleagues, who felt that the report simply took note of developments without really assessing them.
“We are not afraid to pin down what is positive in Banking Union” said Polish MEP Danuta Hübner (EPP). For her part, Mady Delvaux (S&D, Luxembourg) said that she was surprised at the entirely negative nature of the recitals in the report, which one by one flag up the decreasing number of banks in the Eurozone, high volume of non-performing loans held by the banks, the shortcomings observed in business related to the banking sector in 2017 and, lastly, the fact that Banking Union is still incomplete. “In order to be credible, you also need to point out the progress”, she added.
The same observation was made by the ALDE group, which feels that the report should contain an explicit recognition of the benefits of Banking Union. Nor does the group support the rapporteur's view that it is principally for the member states and banks themselves to resolve the problem of non-performing loans. ALDE sees this as a problem that needs a response at European level.
Others, however, felt that the draft report was not critical enough. Gerolf Annemans (ENF, Belgium) said that it does not criticise certain developments enough and could have gone into greater depth on bank bailout operations in Spain and Italy.
In view of this criticism, the rapporteur has said that he is prepared to table amendments to his own report and awaits contributions from the political groups ahead of the committee's vote on 24 January 2018. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)