Brussels, 03/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - Addressing the German press, Commissioner for Competition Neelie Kroes called for greater solidarity between member states in tackling the economic crisis. She informed Süddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday 3 June that “the heads of government cannot go home to criticise decisions made in Brussels, which they previously endorsed”.
Ms Kroes criticised the current German system, consisting of private banks, cooperative banks (Genossenschaftsbanken) and saving banks (Sparkassen) and described it as “outdated”. Nonetheless, she did acknowledge the particular sensitiveness of the issue of reform in Germany, whose banking is different from that in other member states, and where general elections are planned for the end of September. In the interview, the commissioner declared: “Of course policies being developed at a time of the forthcoming elections are being done in specific conditions, but protectionism is the worst of all paths we could take”. Commissioner Kroes then stressed that Germany should not feel it was being given a rough ride by the Commission in comparison to other countries: “Every country thinks we are treating it badly but I do not make different decisions for individual countries”.
The commissioner defended the idea of financial market supervision, as proposed by the European Commission last week (EUROPE 9909 and 9911). Berlin is also putting the final touches to measures that will enable the banks to isolate their toxic assets in bad banks. Discussions with the German minister of finance, Peer Steinbrück, on these two dossiers would be “tiresome” according to Steinbrück and “frank but open” according to the Commission. (C.D/transl.rh)