Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-11-Speech-2-304"
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Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, thank you very much, Commissioner, for being here. However, we were expecting Commissioner McCreevy – as I am sure you know or suspect. You can tell him that Parliament does not really understand why he is not here today at this debate. I have heard that he thought it was bad form to debate these issues with the European Parliament before discussing them in the European Council, or before the European Council had discussed them. Yet this subject was on the Ecofin Council agenda and, all over Brussels, and perhaps in other European capitals, the draft conclusions are circulating.
Similarly, as regards the credit-rating agencies, we can only refer you – or refer Commissioner McCreevy – back to what we said before. We know that the Commission wants to present proposals for the amendment of the Capital Requirements Directive, or CRD. We will be examining these proposals carefully, but we do not think that this will be enough to give the European Union the system of supervision it needs, unless we take account of all the proposals that have been on the table for some months now.
This also concerns the situation of the supervisory committees – the three ‘Level 3’ committees, as we usually call them. For these three Level 3 committees, we need a proposal for legislation that gives them a solid legal basis to act and to strengthen their capability, including in dialogue with the other supervisory authorities, because the idea that we are going to bring in the other supervisory authorities without having our own solid system of supervision does not seem very satisfactory to us.
We would like the Council and the Commission together to look at the proposals on the table, not forgetting, of course, the proposals that the Italian Finance Minister, Mr Padoa-Schioppa, made at the Ecofin Council in December. In the same spirit, here too, we would also like to think more proactively about improving our regulation system, out of respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
We do not believe the idea of a lead supervisor would satisfy all the Member States. What Parliament should be asking for is a solution that includes all the Member States and that enables each one to feel comfortable with the supervision system.
On all these matters, I would be grateful if you, President-in-Office, and you, Commissioner, would make your comments, bearing in mind that I am obviously merely expressing questions that are being asked in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, since we have not yet deliberated on a proper report.
Here in plenary, we will be having a debate tomorrow to prepare for this European Council, so why, when it comes to financial markets, can we not prepare these questions with the European Parliament too? This is something we do not understand, unless the Commissioner is currently campaigning in Ireland for the Treaty of Lisbon, but if he is, he could at least tell us. If he is preparing his future, we are interested in that too. In any case, if Commissioner McCreevy wants to advocate transparency in financial markets, I think he ought to start by being transparent about his own diary!
Financial innovation is an important issue. I also think that, in this Parliament, it is time we acted on the need for regulation. We are often told: if you regulate the financial markets, capital will leave the European market. Today, as my American colleague says, I think the only thing we are seeing is not the disappearance of capital, but the disappearance of the consequences of subprimes.
When we approach this debate, we want to do so with three things in mind: obviously functioning financial markets, but also a genuine capacity to finance the economy and an ability to anticipate the needs of financial markets for stability and protection against the systemic risks. It is in this spirit that we are tackling preparations today for the European Council, with the idea that European monetary policy probably reacted well at the start of the crisis, but that today, in a way, the European supervisor has been found out – and that is what bothers us.
When we look at the issues that will be discussed in the next European Council, we wonder: how capable are we really, at European level, of anticipating a crisis? People talk about an early warning system, but what we see is that, in the markets, the people who really have the ability to raise the alarm are called Goldman Sachs. Are we therefore going to learn any lessons from this for the way Europe operates?
I hear a lot of talk everywhere about transparency. We are all in favour of transparency, but what of that call for transparency when, for the last eight months, all the large investment banks have been called upon to give their figures, to give their assessment of their exposure to risk? They cannot do it, because behind it lies a challenge in terms of reputation, and undoubtedly in terms of valuation, a challenge that is extremely difficult to deal with.
Therefore, when I hear people talking about an alternative, the early warning system – I have already said something about this … As one IMF councillor said to me the other day, the early warning system is a bit like when it says: ‘Smoking kills’ on a packet of cigarettes. How much does it change your behaviour? Not a great deal.
Of course, the IMF and the Financial Stability Forum have a role to play in this. Who does not know this? However, it should be an alternative to our ability to watch how our systems are working. I should say, on this point, that the surprises for this Parliament are just getting bigger. When we adopted the Ehler report on deposit-guarantee schemes on 13 December, we were told that it was much too complex a business and, anyway, it would not provide any guarantees for how the systems would function.
It seems today from the main conclusions of the Ecofin Council to be a way of escaping the crisis, or in any case, a matter that should be reopened as a matter of urgency. If you do reopen it, Commissioner, or rather if your colleague Commissioner McCreevy reopens it, we will be next in line to examine it. At some point, you perhaps need to listen more carefully to what Parliament says about issues like this one."@en1
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