'Financiële waakhonden EU alleen kans van slagen bij steun lidstaten en Commissie' (en)

MEPs on Wednesday night sought to extract firm commitments from the Member States and the Commission that they would respect the spirit and not only the rules of the deal hammered out in September to establish new EU i financial watchdogs.

In a follow-up to Tuesday's decision by the EP's Economics Committee to withhold its decision on the proposed candidates for the European supervisory authority chairmen, Commissioner Michel Barnier i and Eniko Gyori, Minister of State for EU affairs, sought to assuage fears that the independence and overall strength of the authorities was being undermined by poor recruitment procedures and nominations that lacked the required calibre.

Ms Gyori argued that the regulations setting up the authorities would ensured that independence was well protected, that no rules had been breached when drawing up shortlists for the chairmanship candidates and that the Hungarian Presidency attached great importance to all Member States respecting the supervisory authorities. 

Mr Barnier said that he fully understood MEPs' demands and stressed that the Commission would do its utmost to ensure the watchdog's independence and high level representation by national supervisors on the board of supervisors.  He also emphasised that the review clause should be used proactively when it kicked in, in 2013, to make amends.

Jean-Paul Gauzes i (EPP, FR) said that the Commissioner's comments went in the right direction but he had critical words for the stance taken by the Hungarian presidency: "Your commitments are not enough.  We are here fighting to uphold the spirit of the deal and not only to hear what the law says", he said.

"We fought for months to make a break with the system in place before the crisis.  Even then it was clear that some Member States were putting spokes in the wheel.  Now they are trying to sabotage the new supervisory system on a practical level", Liberal Sylvie Goulard i (FR) warned.

"We are not going to allow Member States to play these types of games in a bid to undermine the very functioning of the new supervisory authorities", emphasised Udo Bullmann i (S&D, DE), adding that even though the candidates in question might be technically competent they lacked the charisma to fight off national interference.

Sven Giegold i (Greens/EFA, DE) raised concerns about one of the candidates, arguing that the person lacked the required vision for the post.  He also singled out a part of the recruitment procedure, saying that Parliament needed to be involved from an earlier stage in the choice of the authorities' chairpersons.

Kay Swinburne i (ECR, UK) highlighted the need for a selection procedure designed to allow recruitment from a much broader pool of people.  She also stressed that the selection procedure's lack of transparency needed to be reviewed.

Marta Andreasen i (EFD, UK) highlighted the problem of only having one proposed candidate for each post.  This in itself showed how untransparent the procedure was.  "But then this is the same for the selection of the European Commission president and all other Commissioners", she went on.

Parliamentarians will on Thursday decide whether or not to proceed with a vote on motions for resolutions to reject the proposed candidates.  The decision will be based on their appreciation of written declarations sent to them by the Council and the Commission.