Members of the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) began work on Monday 18 May on the proposal for a regulation that would temporarily and specifically lift certain requirements in the prudential banking regulations to facilitate the granting of loans during the Covid-19 crisis (see EUROPE 12476/8).
According to European Parliament rapporteur Jonás Fernández (S&D, Spain), these are "welcome proposals", but they need to strike a balance between facilitating credit flows and maintaining a safe banking system.
While broadly supporting the Commission's proposals, the S&D group has some reservations about the changes to the leverage ratio, which deviate too far from the Basel Committee's recommendations, he explained.
As regards the transitional provisions aimed at mitigating the impact of the provisions of the accounting standard IFRS 9 on regulatory capital, the rapporteur proposes to review the dynamic component, due to inconsistencies in terms of timing, as well as to explore the possibility of having more flexibility on the static component.
Mr Fernández also put forward the idea of making permanent the backstop proposed by the Commission for non-performing loans (NPLs).
For the Renew Europe and ECR groups, this is certainly not the time for a profound reform of banking prudential rules, but only for the implementation of quick solutions for a better crisis response.
"Any measures must be temporary", insisted Caroline Nagtegaal (Renew Europe, Netherlands), explaining that her group would not support permanent changes.
The Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups were the most critical. For Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany), this package of amendments is simply not "balanced", as it lightens certain prudential banking rules without attaching additional obligations such as, for example, a ban on paying dividends to shareholders. José Gusmão (GUE/NGL, Portugal), who regretted the lack of binding rules to ensure that "loans will indeed benefit the real economy", said the same.
Rejection of the simplified procedure
The European Commission has asked the co-legislators to deal with these measures as a matter of urgency so that they can be adopted in June, leaving only a few weeks for the political groups to negotiate.
At their meeting on 6 May, the political group coordinators for the ECON Committee agreed on the use of the simplified procedure, which, in accordance with Rule 52 of the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure, allows the rapporteur to draft a series of amendments reflecting the debate in committee.
On Monday, the three Members of the GUE/NGL group and the six members of the Greens/EFA group opposed this procedure. Although they recognise the need to work "fast" these nine MEPs believe that the amendments proposed by the Commission should be subject to scrutiny through the ordinary legislative procedure.
Following this rejection, the political group coordinators are due to discuss the procedure again on Tuesday. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)