Romanian Finance Minister Eugen Teodorovici considered it possible to reach an agreement in March at the EU Council on the reform of the European Financial Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) on Monday 21 January, presenting the economic, financial and fiscal priorities of the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council.
Either we work on the legislative package as a whole, or we work first on the anti-money laundering aspect and then on the governance of the ESAs with a view to adopting the entire package "in March", the minister said. "We prefer to take small steps instead", he added.
The Romanian Presidency therefore favours the first option. In response to a question from Doru-Claudian Frunzulică (S&D, Romania), Mr Teodorovici said that his country was trying to "make progress on what has already been agreed by the Council at technical level".
The approach to be pursued in the Council on this dossier should be decided this Tuesday by the European Finance Ministers (see EUROPE 12075).
One of the European Parliament’s two co-rapporteurs on this issue, Pervenche Berès (S&D, France), admitted that the Romanian Presidency did not inherit an easy situation. We have no problem granting more anti-money laundering powers to the European Banking Authority (EBA), but "if you do not change the powers of the EBA, you aggravate a situation by giving new responsibilities to the EBA without giving it the means to implement them", she warned.
Together with her counterpart Othmar Karas (EPP, Austria), she wrote to the Romanian Presidency asking it to work on the whole legislative package (see EUROPE 12173).
Faced with sparse assistance, Mr Teodorovici outlined the Romanian priorities for the first half of 2019 in terms of budget and finance: - deepening of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) to strengthen economic and social coherence and also taking into account the specificities of countries outside the euro area; - completion of the banking union and adoption of as many legislative texts as possible implementing the capital markets union; - finalisation of the risk reduction package in the banking sector and expected agreement on stimulating a secondary market for the exchange of non-performing loans (NPLs).
Asked by Tom Vandenkendelaere (EPP, Belgium) about the taxation of digital sector groups, the Romanian minister preferred "a European solution" on the basis of the Franco-German proposal to a unilateral approach by the Member States. He also recalled that the Council was analysing the impact of the European lists of non-cooperating (black list) or committed tax jurisdictions (grey list), which will be updated in the spring.
Mr Teodorovici also hoped for a political agreement with the European Parliament on the InvestEU programme, which will replace the Juncker investment plan after 2020. While Parliament is ready to negotiate on this dossier, the Council will this Tuesday work on the governance of the future programme and the breakdown of the public guarantee based on the EU budget to be granted by the future InvestEU Fund (see EUROP 12075).
Returning several times to the issue, Siegfried Mureșan (EPP, Romania) asked several questions, in particular on EMU, to the minister whose answers remained evasive to his liking. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)