Romania’s position to the European Commission’ public consultation on financial supervision in the European Union
With regard to the public consultation of the European Commission concerning the Communication on financial supervision in Europewe would like to mention the following aspects:
Romania agrees to the need for further regulation in the financial sector in the context of the economic and financial crisis. In this respect, Romania welcomes the European Commission’s Communication on financial supervision which put forward a new institutional framework and supports the European Commission’s innitiatives.
Nevertheless, there are certain aspects that require a very focused and analytical approach, in order to ensure a smooth and efficient implementation of the measures proposed by the European Commission. In this respect, we would like to draw attention upon the following aspects:
As concerns the macroprudential supervision, Romania supports the setting – up of the European Council for Systemic Risk (ECSR).
Nevertheless, attention should be given to certain features, mainly concerning:
-Ensuring the most adequate representation of institutions/authorities activating at national and European level.
-As regards the decision of making public the ECSR recommendations, due to the sensitivity of the field regulated and the implications for the Member States as concerns the investors’ confidence and financial environment, România considers that a system that allows for the ESRC to decide unilateraly upon the confidentiality of its recommendations as concerns a certain Member State implies certain risks. In this respect, Romania considers that Member States concerned should be consulted before taking such a decision of publishing the recommendation.
As concerns the microprudential supervision, attention should be given to ensure the proper balance between attributions and competencies of supervisory authorities at national and EU level.
In this respect, Romania considers that special attention should be given to the following aspects:
-As concerns the mediation competencies, Romania is of the opinion that such competencies for the European authorities would interfere with the national authorities competencies which in the end bear the entire fiscal responsibilities for the implemented actions;
-As concerns solving cases of breach of Community law, the competencies provided for the European Supervisory Authorities in respect to actions of national supervisory or financial institutions might lead to setting up a dual system of competencies and overlapping responsabilities with the ones provided for the European Commission in the framework of the infringement procedures. At the same time, it might seem that by implementing such system, the responsibility of the MemberState on whose territory the respective supervisory authority performs activities by breaching EU law is minimized (if not eliminated).
-As concerns the full supervisory powers for some specific entities, Romania considers that attention should be given to supervisory competencies for trans-national groups. In this respect, it should be taken into accountthat, as concerns the transnational groups, the provisions of the EU legislationstipulate that supervisory competencies represent attributions of the supervisory authority of the MemberState on whose territory the group activates. Furthermore, on-site investigation might lead to overlapping of attributions between supervisory authorities at EU and national level thus breaching the subsidiarity principle.
-As concerns the financing of the three EU supervisory authorities, Romania considers that the decision concerning the financing sources as well as the criteria for establishing the Member States contributions should take into account, at least the following conditions:
- The financial contribution should be based on the dimension of the national financial market of the respective MemberState;
- The financial contribution should be carefully analized in order to avoid any posibble oversizing.