A public hearing on the economic and financial crisis takes place in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

BARNIER, Michel (FR)

public hearing

ALMUNIA, Joaquin (ES, EC)

economic situation in Europe (T)

Economic and Financial crisis: extracts from the public hearing

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/14035570/ebs72744Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (English), Joaquin ALMUNIA, European Commissioner for Competition, For the first time ever we were using since October 2008 so since the aftermath of Lehman Brothers the article 107 3b. This is the exceptional legal base for exceptional aid to be used in exceptional circumstances. So three times exceptional.

SOUNDBITE (English), Joaquin ALMUNIA, European Commissioner for Competition, What did we want to achieve with all these packages of exceptional frameworks? Of course financial stability was of the essence. Second a level playing field to avoid as much as possible the risk of fragmentation of our internal market. And the risk of disfragmentation when national governments and national authorities were using huge amounts of national money was very very high indeed. And third purpose: we want restructuring of the institutions that receive public support because we want over the medium to long term once the crisis will be out. We want a heavy banking system, a competitive banking system.

SOUNDBITE (English), Joaquin ALMUNIA, European Commissioner for Competition, The main pending problems if I look together at all the problems we are still analyzing are: the Irish case, I will not elaborate on this, you know very well what is the situation. The Greek case and in the financing program EU-IMF program for Greece adopted few months ago there is a provision for a stability fund of an amount of 10 billion euro that is directly linked with the possibilities of helping banks if needed in Greece. We have the German&rsquo;s problems: Landesbanken. We are now still analyzing three cases of Landesbanken.

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel BARNIER, European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services, We all know that our public finances would not sustain a new comparable crisis, same counts for the public opinion. This is why - and here I come to my third point - only a thorough reform of the financial sector will enable us to avoid future measures of the states. This is also the reason why I said it today, like I&rsquo;ve said it the 13th of July, we don&rsquo;t only seem to make reforms because this was a serious crisis.

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel BARNIER, European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services, To prevent bankruptcies in transnational financial institutions the role of the parliament has been essential. The new authorities will have substantial powers, it is very important that they use these powers, that they have the means to work in case of tension on the markets like we&rsquo;ve just proposed for the legislations concerning short selling.

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel BARNIER, European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services, Third condition for this reform: For the future regular stress tests for the banks and on the banks. We have realized those stress tests, they have been publicized to check the situation of the banks. These are good tools. The exercise of this summer has been very efficient, much more transparent. It has been conducted on a very large scale. In case the European Central Bank and the national supervision authorities cooperate well we will have to repeat it.&rdquo;