Council Conclusions

Speech by Sharon Bowles MEP delivered to President Herman van Rompuy on Wed 23rd Jun 2010

President van Rompuy, I am pleased to see you but as chair of ECON, I would rather like to see more of you, in committee, in your Task Force role because when you come up with ideas, any multi-lateral surveillance will come to us under co- decision and the longer we are out of the loop, the longer it will take us to understand and agree the decisions you make. We have some ideas too.

Now the Council Conclusions urge rapid action on the supervision package, AIFM and derivatives.

They do not give prominence to the Capital Requirements Directive, CRD 3, which puts capital on the trading book.

Trading book capital was shirked, under pressure from banks, since before the crisis, and it is what made speculative proprietary trading attractive and cost free: an activity that was fundamental to the crisis.

CRD 3 would automatically shrink casino banking without having to sort out bans and splits.

So why is it not top billing for early action and implementation?

Finally, I appreciate the decision to apply bank stress tests and make them public. This is at least a year overdue and might have saved some of the current sovereign debt problem if it had been done sooner. It is essential now that the stress tests applied cover all the challenges and concerns in the market, otherwise it will simply make matters worse.

ENDS