Commissioner Almunia: The impact of the crisis on the state aid regime for banks
04 October 2011
Almunia stressed that the financial sector must be orientated first and foremost towards its core function of meeting the financing needs of firms and households. The Commission is in the process of changing the regulatory landscape for the financial industry. Recent steps include CRD IV and EMIR.
At present, the Commission is working on restructuring plans for another 21 banks and the EC cannot exclude that this number could grow in the near future.
All the decisions follow the same set of principles. As a condition to approve the bailouts, the Commission demands:
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that banks remunerate and eventually repay the public support they receive;
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that they take measures to address distortions of competition towards their unaided competitors;
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that they restructure their business so that they can return to long-term viability without the need for more government support; and
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that shareholders and hybrid-capital holders bear a fair share of the burden.
As to the latter point, Almunia said that to the best of his knowledge this was the only institution explicitly imposing burden-sharing conditions on bailouts.
The Commission's work has reduced the amount of taxpayers’ money that has gone to financial institutions and has addressed the moral-hazard issue.
Full speech
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