BCE headquarters, photo: Martti Kainulainen / Shutterstock Editorial / Profimedia
The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched a working group, led by Vice President Luis de Guindos, who will analyze ways of simplifying banking regulations in Europe, a source familiar with the situation told on Saturday.
Governors of central banks in Germany, France, Italy and Finland are also part of this working group, the source added. The ECB has refused to comment, and the Bundesbank (Germany), the Bank of France, the Bank of Italy and the Finland's bank did not respond immediately to Reuters comments.
Although the ECB does not have the authority to modify the rules, prerogative that belongs to the European legislators in Brussels, any recommendation of the working group should be submitted to the European Commission to be considered.
Bloomberg has previously reported about creating this work group.
The initiative comes after a letter to the European Commission earlier this year by the governors of central banks in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, in which they requested simplification of European banking regulations considered “excessively complex”.
“A comprehensive analysis of the implications of all the standards issued in Europe to ensure that they do not add, in a cumulatively, unwanted layers of rules and expectations,” the four governors addressed to the letter to the European Commissioner Maria Luis Albuerque must be performed. They suggested that this review could lead to “a legislative proposal … with concrete and realistic simplification measures”.
This week, Claudia Buch, the head of the BCC bank supervision, defended the complexity of European regulations, stating that “in order for the regulations to respond effectively to the specific needs and vulnerabilities of the industry, they must be sufficiently detailed.”
For his part, Fabio Panetta, a member of the ECB Governors Council, said in February that Europe should avoid overloading and that they should consider simplifying existing norms (news.ro)
