23 May 2008

Commission consults on review of Committees of Supervisors

The Commission services do not consider that a radical overhaul of the existing Decisions is needed. The overall objective is to align, clarify and strengthen the responsibilities of the Committees of Supervisors.

The Commission services do not consider that a radical overhaul of the existing Decisions is needed. The Commission proposes to introduce greater consistency between the three Decisions and to establish a clearer framework for the activities of the Committees of Supervisors in the area of supervisory cooperation and convergence.

 

"The financial turmoil has shown that we need to upgrade the current supervisory architecture”, Commissioner McCreevy said.

 

Among others, the paper outlines that the Committees of Supervisors should be mandated in the Commission Decisions to establish mechanisms to ensure effective information exchange between supervisory authorities.

 

The delegation of supervisory responsibilities raises delicate legal issues, in particular because it may interfere with the allocation of responsibilities to home and host supervisors in the directives, the paper notes. The Commission therefore asks whether the Committees of Supervisors should as a priority have a role to foster delegation of tasks between national supervisors and if this should also be regarded as a priority.

 

With regard to the Colleges of Supervisors, the Commission services are of the view that it is essential to explicitly mandate the Committees of Supervisors in order to ensure effective and efficient functioning of the colleges in practice.

 

With regard to Cross-sectoral Cooperation and in view of the increasing importance of financial conglomerates and the upcoming revision of the Financial Conglomerates Directive planned in 2008 and 2009, the decisions establishing CEBS, CEIOPS and CESR should be modified with the objective to bring work on conglomerates within their competence, with an obligation for them to strictly cooperate in this area. The Decisions should also specify that cooperation on conglomerates issues should be exercised in a Joint Working Committee on Financial Conglomerates.

 

To strengthen the requirement to take decisions by Qualified Majority, one possibility could be to enshrine this request into the Decisions, the Commission says.

 

On the financial stability issue, the Commission services intend to adapt the Commission decisions with the overall aim to ensure regular reporting to Finance Ministers by the three Committees on potential or imminent problems in the financial system and a proper translation of risk analysis into policy action.

 

Deadline for comments is 18 July 2008.

 

Press release

Consultation document

 

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