29-07-2014

Banking union under fire

Prague Post: Berlin professor files complaints in constitutional court over ECB’s authority

... Specifically, it is the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), and the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), that has provoked the anger from the academic group. ... Dr Bert Van Roosebeke, a divisional head at the Berlin-based Centre for European Policy (cep), said his organization shares many of the doubts about the legitimacy of the SSM, but his group still has not seen the full details of the complaints filed at the Constitutional Court. “To take such significant legal action, there are many hurdles that you have to clear before such a high court will proceed with a legal case,” he said. “The problem is that Article 127 of the Lisbon Treaty does not set out that the European Central Bank is a supervisory authority, and whether it can supervise all banks, it does not really permit the giving away of all this power,” he said, adding that at the moment the complaint made by the group has yet to capture the imagination of the German public. “Many are on their vacations,” he said. ...read more