In Strasbourg on Monday 1 October, the members of the committee on economic and monetary affairs of the European Parliament began their examination of around 1000 amendments tabled to the three draft reports on the reform of the three European financial supervisory authorities (ESAs): ESMA, the EBA and EIOPA, which supervise the financial markets and the banking and insurance sectors respectively (see EUROPE 11864).
The co-rapporteurs started the meeting with a joint appeal. Othmar Karas (EPP, Austria), who took over from former German MEP Burkhard Balz, called upon his colleagues for “more cooperation and less opposition”.
This appeal was reiterated by Pervenche Berès (S&D, France), who stressed how tight the timetable is to reach an agreement at the European Parliament, then with the Council of the EU, before the end of the term in office of this Parliament.
In the tabled amendments, Berès sees “much wealth and great diversity”. Some of them confirm the points of disagreement with the co-rapporteur, whilst others aim to tackle questions that have not yet been dealt with or to confirm certain orientations, such as consumer protection, she explained.
Enhancing consumer protection
Berès is particularly committed to stepping up consumer protection (see EUROPE 12061) and tabled several amendments to this effect.
In particular, she proposed that the council of the supervisory authorities of the ESAs establish a permanent internal committee made up of the national competent authorities, tasked with enforcing the application of the consumer protection rules. A similar amendment was tabled by the Greens/EFA group.
“We could present it as an additional service provided by the EU”, said Wolf Klinz (ALDE, Germany), who considers it vital that the ESAs are in a position to withdraw financial products deemed dangerous from circulation.
The question of 'no-action letters'
Several amendments introduced the principle of 'no-action letters', which allow legislators to notify market players that legislation is temporarily suspended or due to a difficulty of interpretation, Berès noted.
“I do not feel that the EU needs this procedure, because it has already proven that it is able to adjust its legislative apparatus to respond to new circumstances”, she explained. She sees it as an “open door to all financial market players that find a little gap in the legislation to have its application suspended”.
Klinz, on the other hand, was in favour, whilst the Commission has said that the procedure was complicated to implement from a legal point of view.
Overlap with the new competences for the EBA
The recent Commission proposal to amend the reform to give the European Banking Authority new powers in the fight against money laundering (see EUROPE 12094) has not made the MEPs' work any easier.
“It will be up to us to verify how we work all of these concerns around each other”, said Berès, who tabled several amendments to recognise the role of the ESAs in this area.
The coordinators of the groups will discuss these new proposals next week, Karas explained. The question of which parliamentary committee is competent, civil liberties, justice and home affairs (LIBE) or economic and monetary affairs (ECON), will also be settled.
The parliamentary committee vote is currently still scheduled for 5 November, but the MEPs acknowledged that it will certainly be postponed. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)