(SIR Europe – Strasburg) - “Today the Commission presents its proposals for a sole European monitoring mechanism, which is an essential step towards bank union. This new system hinging on the European Central Bank”, includes specific roles “of national supervisory authorities”. Following the vision of President of the Commission Manuel Barroso, the bank union “will recover trust in the monitoring of all banks in the Eurozone”. “The European Parliament will have to play a fundamental role in granting democratic control” of the new system. Barroso says: “This initiative will take absolute precedence in such a way that the European supervisory authority can start working at the beginning of the next year. Moreover, it will prepare the ground for any decisions to use European protection networks to recapitalise banks”. The President of the Commission says: “we want to break out of the State-banks vicious circle. In future, bank losses will never become debt of citizens, putting in danger the financial stability of entire countries”. The bank union proposal is based on a single supervisory mechanism (called Single Supervisory Mechanism, SSM) for the banks in the eurozone; for the Commission, it is “an important step for strengthening bank and monetary union”. (Continued)

12/09/2012 -