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Good afternoon - it is just gone afternoon I think!
Well I think we have had an interesting mix of discussion and debate this morning.
First of all, a word of thanks to all those who took part in that discussion. We had a top-class range of speakers and contributors in this seminar and I know they all have busy agendas. And may I also thank the ECB team and our own staff here at the SRB for their work in putting together this event.
There is an expression that “everything has been said, but not everyone has said it yet”, so I don’t want to repeat too much of what has already been dissected and analysed already – but perhaps I leave you with some thoughts:
If you look at the events of this decade so far: Covid, the invasion of Ukraine, Archegos, Greensill, Credit Suisse, the turmoil in the UK, we see that during the these past few years, the resilience of the European banking system was very strong, based on good supervision, but also reinforced solvency, liquidity and resolvability requirements.
Nevertheless, we must remain vigilant and diligently work to promote stability within the Banking Union. This entails also sharpening the tools in our kit and adding new ones.
In that sense, we know that the crisis management framework is already strong but remains incomplete and from time to time, based on our experience of the recent years, is not able to smoothly tackle some issues related to banks difficulties.
The first thing that I take away from this event is that, even if it does not complete the Banking Union, CMDI is a clear improvement to our framework. It allows us to better protect depositors and taxpayers at the same time. Two birds with one stone!
Today we also heard strong support by the two Banking Union pillars representatives for the dual improvement of an expansion of PIA and new sources of funding. However, it has been underlined several times that it is not possible to support the expansion if it comes without the tools to deal with these additional banks earmarked for resolution.
We really hope that co-legislators will be able to find a solution which allows for an expansion of the PIA but also a sufficient increase of the funding possibilities. We tried today to provide our technical expertise to help them in this endeavour and we stand available to continue supporting.
As we have seen today, the proposal has a lot of positive novelties that go beyond the dual proposal of expanded PIA and funding. It improves the crisis continuum from the early exchange of information to preventive and recovery measures. It tries to prevent limbo situations, to improve disclosures, alternative measures and so on. I would appeal to the co-legislators: it is really needed to adopt all parts of the CMDI, and in particular all the elements which are not controversial, NOW. This is important to send a signal of trust into the Banking union NOW and, ultimately, to make sure that we can resolve our banks more smoothly. In 2022, the Eurogroup – not being able to already agree on a roadmap to a full Banking union- took a commitment to improve the crisis management and deposit insurance framework. That’s exactly the moment to act.
Thank you.
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