06 February 2014

Commissioner Barnier: "I do not believe in deregulation"

Translated from the German

You have just agreed within the Commission and with representatives of the European Parliament on new rules for the financial and commodity markets.

Together with my colleagues, I am trying to implement the agreements that were made ​​by the G20 countries after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. We need good regulation to ensure that the financial sector functions better, works more solidly and really is at the service of the real economy. Now we have reached an agreement on stricter rules for raw material and high-frequency trading. We have, for the first time in Europe, rules that encompass the fully automated securities trading. This sets limits for the computer-controlled high-frequency trading and enviseages strict supervision and thus protects against market abuse. In addition, we now have the derivatives trading commodities transparency requirements that are credible. We would have been happy to be even stricter. However, in the end we achieved great progress. We do not intend to lay the financial sector in chains. We need the financial markets, but they need to work on a healthy and sound basis, so that they can provide the real economy with loans.

And they do not?

What we see today is that banks alone can no longer afford the financing of the economy. I do not believe in deregulation, nor in self-regulation. We have seen in recent years how the wave of deregulation has led to the financial crisis and ultimately to the recession. What is important today is that the entire financial market is transparent. Morals and a certain ethical standard must be observed.

Are you optimistic that one day, the standards and rules, previously adopted standards by the EU, the US and the rest of the G20, will be combined into a global rule-book?

As Jean Monnet, one of the fathers of the European Union, replied when he was asked whether he was an optimist or a pessimist: "I am neither, but I am determined". But the question is of course important. If we want to avoid financial markets spiralling out of control again, we need common "rules". It is important that there are strict compatible rules, especially between the EU and the US. We have since made progress, but in the context of the negotiations of the EU free trade agreement with the United States we want to go even further.

In Europe, there are still loopholes. Shadow banks offer bank-like loans to the EU, but they have no banking licence and are not subject to supervision. Is this acceptable?

Of course not. The shadow banking sector also needs to operate in daylight. We have already presented a communication to shadow banks last year, as well as a regulation on money market funds. And soon, we will submit a proposal for regulation that brings transparency into the activities of the shadow banks.

So the same regulation of money market funds as for banks?

Of course, the money market funds will also have to be registered and supervised. 

Despite all the new regulations, we still seem far from the goal of a single European financial market.

We need a functioning internal market, including for the financial sector. This is our great advantage, both for Europe but also for Europe in the world. We are working to complete it, on all levels. So we have finally reached a European patent and a simplification of public procurement procedures. We also deal with issues such as professional qualifications, and electronic commerce. But of course there is still much left to do, especially in the financial market sector. There is no transparency in bank charges. It is still difficult to open a bank account in another EU country. We have received figures showing that 9 million Europeans were not permitted to set up a bank account. To eliminate these problems, the Commission last year has presented a scheme for access for everyone to a basic bank account and the transparency of bank fees.

Full interview (in German)

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