Economic and monetary affairs announcement:
The EP’s economics committee on Tuesday postponed its decision on the proposed candidates for the European supervisory authority chairmen on the grounds that it needed more guarantees from the Commission and Member States regarding the independence of all senior executives of the authorities, appropriate budgetary and human resources, and an improved personnel selection procedure.
The Chair of the economics committee, Sharon Bowles said:
“From the very beginning the European Parliament has championed the cause for effective and strong European financial supervisory authorities. Many months of work and effort were put into this cause by MEPs responsible for reaching a deal with Member States. The right choice of persons to head the authorities in their first years is essential if they are to truly represent strong authorities with an important say at Europe’s highest financial levels.
“Unfortunately, the selection procedure has so far been below par and the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee has raised alarm bells to this on various occasions. Remuneration levels are uncompetitive resulting in too few applications, the 60 year age limit inappropriate, and gender balance has also been lacking. Moreover the calendar followed did not allow for the European Parliament to have its say on the shortlists presented by the Commission.
“In light of this, the committee has today decided to withhold from making a recommendation on the nomination of the three candidates proposed. At the same time the decision was made to request firm commitments from Member States and the Commission to ensure that subsequent selection procedures will better involve Parliament and that the concerns raised will be taken into account.”
Capacity to act and independence
During the hearings which took place on the same day, numerous MEPs raised their doubts regarding the ability of the supervisory authorities to hit the ground running due to the lack of human and budgetary resources. They also questioned the candidates on their strategies for ensuring genuine independence for the authorities from national supervisors. Finally, they were critical of the selection procedures being used to recruit personnel and expressed fears that there may be no culture change between the old European supervisory structures and the new ones.
Main priorities
Turning to the financial questions proper, MEPs focussed very strongly on the imperative of integrating further the consumer protection dimension as one of the fundamental objectives of the authorities. They also gave particular attention to the pensions issue and how to deal with national pensions reforms, the persistent problem of the watering down of capital requirements regulations, and asked about the possibility for banning financial products which pose a grave risk to stability or investor protection. Finally the importance of not abusing the safeguard clause which allows Member States the right to refuse to act on one of the European authority’s request on budgetary grounds was also raised.
