European Financial Supervision (Communication)

The EU Commission is of the opinion that EU financial supervision needs to be adjusted. According to the Commission, particularly the system of national supervisory models is no longer capable of keeping pace with the challenges emerging from financial firms operating across borders. To this end, the Commission wishes to establish a European system of financial supervisors (ESFS) and a European systemic risk council (ESRC).

cepPolicyBrief

The new supervisory architecture is to finally close the gaps in the current EU financial supervision which is still shaped in a strictly national manner. It is reasonable that financial supervision will not be excessively centralised at EU level, particularly in view of the political issues such a solution would entail. But even a partial centralisation raises the question whether Member States are willing to accept decisions taken by EU authorities that might possibly lead to long range effects on their national budgets.