Brussels, 07/05/2009 (Agence Europe) - At the European Parliament on Thursday 7 May, European legislators, representatives of national regulators, the industry and consumers debated the European financial supervision system of the future. Reflecting the influence of the recommendations of the de Larosière report, discussion revolved around two points that were to guide the reform of the system: macro- and micro-prudential supervision (see EUROPE 9848). Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy repeated the comments of two days previously by Commission President José Manuel Barroso on the Commission proposals expected on 27 May which will be base don the two pillars of the de Larosière report (see EUROPE 9896). “These reforms should be flanked by an ambitious effort to equip the EU with a single harmonised rulebook by removing the many national options and discretions from EEU financial regulation,” he added.
The chairs of the three European committees of national regulators welcomed the recommendations on how to improve micro-prudential supervision, in particular by making the three committees European authorities, while taking account of the international level of the reform taking place. Supportive of a gradualist approach, CEIOPS President Thomas Steffen said that the issues related to the governance and funding of the planned authorities had to be looked at in greater detail. Being accountable to the European institutions was not a problem, if the principle of the independence of the authorities is respected. CEBS President Kerstin af Jochnick said that it would be a “great step forward” to create by the end of the year some 40 colleges bringing together national cross-border banking institution supervisors, consolidated by the legal basis recently introduced in the Basel II directive on own fund requirements (see EUROPE 9896). For the CESR, Eddy Wymeersch focused his comments on how to balance the binding nature of the decisions of the future European authorities. Patrick Brady, chairman of the Working Committee on Financial Conglomerates, felt that the de Larosière report did not make specific proposals on financial entities although they represented almost 70% of cross-border financial institutions.
Fernando Zunzunegui, chairman of the FIN-USE Forum of financial services experts, regretted the silence of the de Larosière report on “consumer protection issues”. He recommended that a financial services consumers authority should be set up. The representative of UNI-EUROPE, an international trade union representing financial sector employees, would support the creation of a “charter on the responsible selling of financial products”. He said that a “major omission” in the de Larosière report was “the role of employees in supervision”. (M.B./transl.rt)