"A step forward towards the creation of the banking union, which must be the central element of an authentic economic and monetary union". This was Mario Draghi's first comment after the approval by a large majority by the European Parliament of the two legislative texts (technically defined as regulations) that will give life to the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). A new body that will have to be set up within the European Central Bank and which will be entrusted with the supervision of the main banks in the Eurozone. These will be around 130 according to the forecast of the ECB (at least three for each member country of the Eurozone), corresponding to 85% of the banking assets of the area in question; about twenty more in the opinion of the European Parliament. To these may be added others, based in non-Euro countries, who intend to join voluntarily.
Oversight by the ECB through the Single Mechanism will be exercised in collaboration with the national banking supervisory authorities, which in any case will continue to be fully entrusted with the supervision of the approximately six thousand credit institutions present in the 18 countries of the Eurozone (including Latvia, which will join on January XNUMX next). However, the European Central Bank may decide at any time to directly supervise one of these credit institutions to ensure the application of the highest performance standards.
Together with the regulation that will give birth to the Single Supervisory Mechanism, the Assembly also approved another one that transfers to this new body the supervisory functions that in July four years ago had been attributed to the European Banking Authority, set up at the time , with a delayed outbreak, to prevent further banking crises after the devastating one of the "subprime" that exploded the previous year in the United States. The two provisions will enter into force one year after their approval by the European Council and their publication in the Official Journal of the EU. And then presumably by the end of 2014.
“We will make every effort to address all organizational needs in order to take over our supervisory duties on time one year after the new regulations come into force. And we look forward to being able to collaborate with national authorities to help restore confidence in the banking sector,” Draghi said.
While the EU Assembly voted in favor of the new rules in Strasbourg, European Parliament President Martin Schulz and his ECB counterpart Mario Draghi signed a formal joint declaration to underline the joint commitment of the two institutions to support the agreement interinstitutional agreement, already substantially even if not formally concluded, which defines in detail the tasks that the ECB will entrust to the nascent Supervisory Mechanism and the prerogatives of "democratic control" that the European Parliament, with the two regulations approved in plenary, has de facto already attributed and will allow it to have a very strong weight in the new banking supervision system.
“The interinstitutional agreement – states, among other things, the joint Schulz-Draghi statement – will establish strong parliamentary control of the supervisory tasks entrusted to the ECB. Control that will be expressed through regular exchanges of views between the Bank of Frankfurt and the competent commission of the European Parliament, confidential meetings of authoritative exponents of the ECB with the Bureau of the same commission, the possibility of accessing information, including the minutes of the Board, held of the Supervisory Mechanism".
Within the framework of the Single Supervisory Mechanism, a supervisory committee will be established as soon as possible (in this sense there is the joint commitment of Schulz and Draghi) which will be assigned the responsibility of planning and implementing the supervisory tasks in head of the ECB, to prepare the preparatory work and to propose the decisions which will then be adopted by the Bank's Board of Governors.
This committee will include a president appointed by the European Parliament for a non-renewable five-year period, a vice president chosen from among the members of the board of the ECB (both subject to the approval of the Strasbourg Parliament, which will also have the power to request his removal ), four other representatives of the European Central Bank itself, one member from each Member State representing the relevant national banking authorities.
