In Luxembourg on Friday, 10 October, European Commissioner for Financial Services Maria Luís Albuquerque gave her assurance that the European Commission would act to enforce internal market rules, thereby maintaining the pressure on the Italian government, which is opposed to the bank Banco BPM being bought out by its competitor UniCredit.
On the sidelines of the Ecofin Council, Mrs Albuquerque told a few journalists, “We have said from the beginning that we need to guarantee that we do whatever is in our power to address issues that cause fragmentation in the market.” She promised to take action against “all the issues that may be out there” that “are preventing those agreed rules [from being] properly implemented” and “are blocking [the] cross-border provision of services, mergers, [etc.]”
Nevertheless, she refused – for lack of an official decision from the European Commission at this stage – to comment on the indiscretions reported by Reuters, according to which the EU institution is going to open infringement proceedings against Italy in November for allegedly abusing its discretionary power (‘golden power’) to evaluate and set conditions for the Banco BPM-UniCredit deal (see EUROPE 13680/21).
When asked about how much time the European Commission needs to take a decision – which has been longer in the Italian case than for the procedure when BBVA bought out Sabadell in Spain (see EUROPE 13684/26) – the European commissioner limited herself to welcoming the developments in the Spanish case, BBVA having accepted the conditions imposed on its operation.
SIU. With regard to the Savings and Investments Union (SIU), Mrs Albuquerque reiterated that the ECB will present an initiative on mobilising pensions “in November” and another on financial supervision “at the beginning of December”.
In response to a question from Agence Europe, the Portuguese former minister stated, “We want to make sure that we have single supervision in Europe. But single supervision is not the same as a single supervisor. Single supervision is guaranteeing that the same rules are applied consistently in a harmonised way across the EU so that the same question gets the same answer, whatever you ask.” Nevertheless, she did indicate that the European Commission would propose that certain supervisory powers be “centralised” – without specifying which ones.
The Austrian, French, and Italian market authorities are recommending that the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) be granted the power to supervise the main service providers on the crypto-asset market (see EUROPE 13714/13). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)