Economic governance

Leaked legal opinion on eurozone banking union

October 18, 2012 10:42 am by Alex Barker

Legal opinions from the top lawyer to EU ministers are not intended for mass circulation. They are usually virtually unquotable, often studiously ambiguous and always highly political. But the Council legal service’s take on the European Commission plan for a single bank supervisor is a classic.

The headline is that the Commission’s supervision blueprint — as announced in September — is illegal in key parts. More important, though, is the detail of the argument and the challenges it poses to finding a diplomatic solution before the end of the year.

Before diving into the argument and quoting key sections, it is worth sumarising and explaining some of the implications. Read more

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Posted in Economic governance, EU, Financial services |
From Money Supply October 11, 2012

Yves Mersch’s long, slow ascent to a place on the six-member executive board of the European Central Bank has just hit another potentially serious roadblock.

The governor of the Bank of Luxembourg is male, like all his central bank peers in the eurozone, and the economic and monetary affairs committee of the European Parliament has decided it is time to draw a line in the sand.

 Read more

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Posted in Economic governance, EU Parliament |

Leaked summit conclusions: A tweak at Britain?

October 9, 2012 4:14 pm by Peter Spiegel

Britain's David Cameron meets EU's Herman Van Rompuy at Downing Street last year.

Aides to Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, have circulated an updated draft of conclusions for next week’s EU summit and, according to a copy obtained by Brussels Blog, they have retained controversial proposals for a single eurozone budget and “contracts” between eurozone countries and Brussels on economic reform programmes.

Unlike the previous proposal by Van Rompuy’s staff, which was labeled “guidelines” and intended only to generate discussion, the current text (a copy of which we’ve posted here) comes in formal “draft conclusions” form – a technical yet significant difference, meaning there was widespread support for the ideas in talks with eurozone member states.

As we reported ahead of this week’s Conservative party conference in the UK, the idea of a eurozone budget has even gained support from the British government, which views it as a way for the 17 eurozone countries to increase their spending on a European level even as the UK freezes its commitment to the EU-wide budget for all 27 members.

However, in a tweak of the Van Rompuy language that appears aimed at Britain, the communiqué makes clear that any plans for a eurozone budget – or “fiscal capacity” in eurospeak – would be separate from negotiations over the EU-wide budget, which is known as the multiannual financial framework: Read more

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Posted in Economic governance, EU |

The leaked Van Rompuy plan for eurozone

October 3, 2012 9:37 am by Peter Spiegel

In today’s dead-tree version of the FT, we have a front-page story on an eight-page “draft guidelines for the conclusions” for this month’s EU summit, a document that includes some bold new ideas, like requiring eurozone countries to sign “individual contractual arrangements” with Brussels on their economic reform plans.

We thought we’d post the document (see it here) for Brussels Blog readers to get a fuller view. The parts we found most interesting begin on page 7. Senior officials caution the draft is being used to stimulate debate so that Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, can come up with a more concrete consensus heading into the summit about what can be achieved.

Indeed, the cover sheet of the draft calls it a “state of progress regarding the various topics on the agenda”; still, since it was cobbled together after Van Rompuy’s series of meetings with eurozone leaders over the past month, it reflects the thinking of a lot of national leaders, particularly in the bloc’s largest countries. Read more

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Posted in Economic governance, EU |

The Next Barroso…

September 17, 2012 5:52 pm by Joshua Chaffin

Who will succeed José Manuel Barroso as president of the European commission?

That question has long been debated around the corridors and coffee bars ofBrussels. But it gained special urgency after Barroso’s state-of-the-union speech in Strasbourg last week. In it, Barroso suggested that each political party nominate their own choice for commission president and place that person atop their list for the 2014 European elections.

The idea is to generate some much-needed excitement for EU elections that tend to suffer from paltry voter turnout.

“This would be a decisive step to make the possibility of a European choice offered by these elections even clearer. I call on the political parties to commit to this step and thus to further Europeanise these elections,” Barroso said.

So that begs the question: who is generating the most buzz as the next commission president? Who has the right stuff? As a service to our readers, Brussels Blog has decided to present a list of early contenders from each of the major political families. Read more

Posted in Economic governance, EU, EU Commission, EU Parliament, Euro |

One bank supervisor, many paymasters

September 14, 2012 1:38 pm by Alex Barker

Is it possible to have one supervisor for eurozone banks, while keeping 17 different paymasters for when things go wrong?

It is the big potential problem of phasing in a banking union – while prudential responsibility is centralized under one supervisor, the means to pay for bank failure isn’t. One cynical diplomat likened it to “telling all cars to suddenly change sides and drive on the left of the road – but leaving the lorries to drive on the right.”

Just think through what would happen in the case of a failed financial institution once the European Central Bank takes over supervision.

Under the Brussels banking union plan, the ECB will have the power to shut down the lender by removing its license to operate. But in practice it would require the authorisation of the bank national authority. As we know, some banks perform vital functions for the economy and are too big to fail. For the ECB to pull the plug, someone would have to be available to pay for winding it up or bailing it out. Read more

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Posted in Economic governance, EU Commission, Euro, Financial services |

Yves Mersch is male. Is that now a problem for ECB?

September 7, 2012 10:23 am by Peter Spiegel

Luxembourg's Yves Mersch, left, arriving at an ECB executive board meeting in Finland last year.

Yves Mersch’s path to a seat on the European Central Bank’s powerful six-member executive board has been rocky.

The head of the Luxembourg central bank was, at first, not even considered a leading candidate for the position, which was being vacated by a Spaniard and, Madrid assumed, would be filled by a Spaniard. But a caucus of northern European countries balked at putting another southerner on the board, so inflation hawk Mersch became their candidate.

That set off months of nasty backroom battles, where the Spanish insisted on compensation – at one point they held out for the head of the new €500bn eurozone rescue fund, which was supposed to go to German economist Klaus Regling – in exchange for acceding to Mersch. Luxembourg retaliated by holding up plans to give Spain more time to hit tough budget targets.

In the end, the northerners won out. Mersch was nominated, and Spain was left empty handed. Everyone thought the fight was over. Everyone thought too soon: this morning, the European Parliament announced it was postponing Mersch’s confirmation hearing scheduled for Monday because no women candidates were considered for the job. Read more

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Posted in Economic governance, EU Parliament, Euro |

Finland and Italy: Enemies, a love story?

August 8, 2012 11:19 am by Peter Spiegel

Monti, left, and Katainen at last week's meeting between the two prime ministers in Helsinki

It is axiomatic that politics make strange bedfellows, but it would be hard to find stranger bedfellows than Finland, the orneriest of the eurozone’s austere north, and Italy, the biggest debtor in its troubled south.

Even before the eurozone debt crisis put the two countries on a collision course, Helsinki and Rome had their run-ins, particularly after Parma beat out a Finnish competitor to host the European Food Safety Authority – and then-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi poured salt in the wound by suggesting EU officials would prefer Parma’s famous ham to Finnish smoked reindeer.

But are there suddenly signs of a thaw – or even an alliance? First, Berlusconi’s successor, Mario Monti, last week decided to visit Helsinki for meetings with Jyrki Katainen, Finland’s prime minister. Now, top officials from Berlusconi’s centre-right party appear to be adopting a Finnish plan to help lower Italian borrowing costs. Read more

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Posted in Economic governance, EU |

France and Italy have some disdain for Spain

July 24, 2012 6:12 pm by Peter Spiegel

Spain's Mendez de Vigo, right, with his Danish counterpart at a Brussels meeting in May.

An otherwise uneventful meeting of 27 European ministers in Brussels was upended Tuesday when Inigo Méndez de Vigo, Spain’s EU minister, issued a statement saying Madrid, Rome and Paris all agreed countries were not doing enough to implement eurozone crisis decisions taken at last month’s high-stakes summit.

The statement (see it here, in Spanish) appeared to be a coordinated attack on Germany, where senior officials have spent weeks sending conflicting messages on what, exactly, was agreed at the summit and when decisions will be implemented – a big deal for Spain, since the measures could eventually mean the eurozone and not the Spanish government will be liable for debt incurred during Spain’s bank bailout.

One problem: there was no three-country agreement. And now Rome and Paris are running away from Méndez de Vigo’s statement as fast as they can. Read more

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Posted in Economic governance, EU |

3 designs for banking union (and the turf war ahead)

June 12, 2012 3:26 pm by Alex Barker

Planning for a European banking union is racing ahead, in spite of the considerable political obstacles. The vision is for two, five or even ten years in the future. But be in no doubt: the institutional turf war is already afoot.

It was on display today in the pages of the international press. Speaking to the FT Jose Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, laid out his vision of a banking union built on the foundations of existing EU institutions.

At the same time Christian Noyer, the governor of the Bank of France, made his pitch in the Wall Street Journal for eurozone central banks to provide “the backbone of the financial union”.

The clashing views highlight the great unanswered question of the banking union: if power over banks is centralised, who will be given control? Cui bono? These three scenarios lay down the broad templates for a union, and the institutions that would stand to win and lose depending on the outcome.

1. An EU banking union

Broadly as outlined by Barroso. A single supervisor, resolution regime and deposit guarantee fund serving all 27 member states. Should the UK refuse to take part — which it will — arrangements would be found to enable the other members to go forward. This union would cover countries outside and inside the single currency club, but remain within an EU framework.

Treaty change would not be necessary, at least according to the commission. Read more

Posted in Economic governance, EU, EU Commission, Euro, Financial services |
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