12 June 2013

Bundestag's Finance Committee backs ECB as banking supervisor

The Finance Committee of the German Bundestag voted on Wednesday on a draft proposal which envisages that certain banking supervision functions previously under national authority should in future be carried out by the ECB.

Translated from the German

The draft law on a proposal from the Council on specific tasks related to the supervision of credit institutions to be transferred to the European Central Bank (ECB) was voted in favour by the coalition parties as well as the SPD and Alliance 90/Greens groups. The Left Party rejected the proposal.

After constitutional concerns had been voiced during the public hearing on the proposal, the parlimentary groups agreed on a joint declaration in the minutes that this decision does not constitute a prejudicing of other such cases. A spokesperson of the FDP faction called the law in this context an "exceptional case".

A spokesman of the SPD faction called for the "unholy alliance between ailing states and ailing banks" in Europe to be broken up by a banking union. The concentration of both monetary policy and banking supervision at the ECB had to be separated again. The Left Party criticised the limitation of the banking supervision to the eurozone, whereby London as the major financial centre was not included. 

With this law, the committee aimed to create the prerequisite for a formal approval by the German Representative at the European Council where the Commission's proposal for a banking supervision (Single Supervisory Mechanism, SSM Regulation) will be decided upon. The new uniform regulatory mechanism will then automatically encompass all eurozone members. Non-eurozone Member States can participate on a voluntarily basis.

The vote on the proposal is on the agenda of the German Bundestag plenary session for Friday.

As specified in the explanatory memorandum, the ECB's direct supervision focuses on "significant" financial institutions of the participating countries. Banks or corporations with total assets over €30 billion or more than 20 per cent of the gross domestic product of a Member State are automatically considered significant. The supervision of other financial institutions will still be carried out by the national banking authorities.

Rejected was an amendment tabled by the parliamentary groups of the SPD and Alliance 90/Greens, in which both factions called for "a new attempt to tame the financial markets". The proposal included the demand that a strong European banking union should be established. If the ECB was taking over additional supervisory functions, it was also necessary to ensure "that the strict separation of monetary policy and supervisory role" was guaranteed, according to the amendment. The SPD and Alliance 90/Greens voted for the amendment, the coalition parties CDU/CSU and FDP rejected it, whilst the Left Party abstained.

Full article (in German)

© Deutscher Bundestag