BRUSSELS (MNI) – European Central Bank President Mario Draghi
Thursday expressed confidence that EU leaders meeting next week in
Brussels would reach agreement on a proposal to make the ECB the
ultimate supervisor of banks in the Eurozone.
“I am very confident we will reach an agreement,” Draghi said at
the ECB’s monthly press conference. “There is a general will to reach an
agreement,” he said, adding that the benefits “were not disputed.”
“The main aim is to break the link between the sovereigns and the
banks. It is to make the banks basically reliable, trustworthy,
regardless of the place where they have their headquarters and where
they exercise their business,” he said.
The ECB president downplayed ongoing disagreements among Eurozone
governments, including France and Germany, over fundamental elements of
the bank supervision plan that were in evidence at a EU finance
ministers meeting earlier this week, saying that they needed to be seen
“in perspective.”
“The political discussion has really just started,” he said, noting
that the idea of giving centralized bank supervisory functions to the
ECB was only put forward in the summer.
Finding middle ground in the debate over the future scope of the
ECB’s supervisory powers, Draghi argued that all banks should ultimately
be included in the single supervisory system to ensure a level playing
field, but that it was logical for smaller banks to be the daily
responsibility of national authorities
“It is obvious the ECB won’t be able to supervise 6,000 banks,” he
said. In practice it is obvious that larger, more systemically important
banks would be more closely supervised by the ECB and that smaller banks
would be subject to less intense central scrutiny and more national
oversight, he said.
Draghi said that for the ECB, ensuring the independence of its
monetary policy decisions once it takes over bank supervision was of
utmost importance.
–Brussels Newsroom, +324-952-28374; pkoh@mni-news.com
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