Yesterday’s B4B meeting opened with a discussion on the probable outcome and possible consequences of the European elections this coming weekend. Polls suggest that despite the rise of extreme and more populist parties on both ends of the political spectrum, the established political groups (EPP, S&D, ALDE) will win approximately two thirds of the seats in the new parliament and maybe even increase their overall share slightly.
Speculation was voiced about the future ECON chair, who was deemed likely to be from the EPP and probably German in order to balance out both past appointments and reflect the (anticipated) outcome of the election. The question how the next Commission president would be chosen divided opinions: Some saw the top candidates with a realistic chance, if not from the overall winning group, but maybe ALDE’s Verhofstadt as a compromise candidate. However, as Van Rompuy said only last week that for the Council the choice would not be automatically one of the groups’ nominated top candidates. Some in the audience considered it highly unlikely that Martin Schulz had any chance of becoming Commission president, seeing even Juncker getting the post as a rather unlikely outcome. Instead un-nominated EPP affiliated candidates like Kenny or Lagarde were mentioned. In terms of group formation in the future parliament, some doubt existed whether the current UK Conservatives’ ECR would manage to re-form after the elections.
To the question whether after the spur of regulatory and legislative activity by the outgoing Commission we could now expect a period of relative calm in financial service regulation, the answer was a resounding no, as not only regulatory activity was going to continue, but also many of the recently adopted pieces of legislation were to come up for review in the next Commission’s term. As priorities for the next financial services Commissioner were identified:
-
non-bank recovery and resolution
-
secondary legislation/ level II
-
SME funding – crowd funding and the revival of the securitisation market
-
consumer protection
In banking, the announced ECB rules on how to deal with capital shortfalls were discussed, with the AQR remaining on track. Considered noteworthy by many was the announcement of the ECB methodology that states that any bank that has received public funds in the past would be considered systemically important and hence supervised by the ECB. This would also include some of the German Landesbanken, which Germany has been so protective of in the past. In this context, Angela Merkel’s comment that there should be no political interference with the decision making process of the ECB seemed all the more relevant.
Graham Bishop - Consultant on EU Integration - Political, Financial, Economic, Budgetary
Rolling blog
© Graham Bishop
Key
Hover over the blue highlighted
text to view the acronym meaning
Hover
over these icons for more information
Comments:
No Comments for this Article