Courtesy of Mish.
Once nannycrats grab on to an idea, they never relinquish it. Eurobonds are the perfect example. Many other idea float around despite numerous objections in key places. Some of these ideas involve creation of more commissions and more working groups.
Here is a sampling of commissions and groups that I am aware of.
- The European Commission is headed by president José Manuel Barroso
- The European Council is headed by president Herman Van Rompuy
- The Euro Group is headed by president Jean-Claude Juncker
- The European parliament president is Martin Schulz
- Numerous other committees set policy on trade, energy, and nearly everything else under the sun.
Barroso now wants another new commission, this one under the ECB with the task of being the “all powerful” banking supervisor.
As envisioned, Barroso’s plan would would create a 23-member board: a national representative from each eurozone country plus six independent members, including its chair and vice-chair.
No doubt there will be dozens if not hundreds of staff members all intent on expanding their own power.
The Financial Times has more details in Brussels pushes for wide ECB powers
The European Central Bank would be given sweeping authority over all 6,000 eurozone banks under a plan being drawn up by the European Commission, putting Brussels on a collision course with Germany and the ECB itself, which have urged a more decentralised first step towards “banking union”.
The plan, agreed at a meeting this week between top aides to José Manuel Barroso, commission president, and Michel Barnier, the EU’s senior financial regulator, would strip existing national supervisors of almost all authority to shut down or restructure their countries’ failing banks, giving those powers to Frankfurt.
The German government has resisted centralising all supervisory powers with the ECB, however, arguing that Frankfurt should be left to deal with just the eurozone’s 20-25 largest banks. National supervisors would then be left as independent and co-ordinating agencies for smaller banks.
Some senior ECB officials had taken a similar view in closed-door consultations with Brussels, EU officials said, though Mario Draghi, the ECB chief, is more sympathetic to the commission’s view.
Germany’s objections also stem from a desire to keep national control over smaller, politically connected regional savings banks.
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