Vote on the resilience EU credit institutions (Bank reform) during the EP plenary session in Brussels. Statements by Gunnar HÖKMARK (EPP, SV), rapporteur, and by the shadow rapporteurs. Statement by Roberto GUALTIERI (S&D, IT), chair of the ECON Committee.

Brussels

statement

plenary session

vote

LAMBERTS, Philippe (Greens/EFA, BE)

HÖKMARK, Gunnar (EPP, SE)

GUALTIERI, Roberto (S&D, IT)

von WEIZSÄCKER, Jakob (S&D, DE)

banking supervision (T)

GOULARD, Sylvie (ALDE, FR)

DE MASI, Fabio (GUE/NGL, DE)

Vote on the resilience EU credit institutions (Bank reform): statements by the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs

External shot of EP building in Brussels. 1 shot. 

Cutaways of the debate before the vote of the amendments. 3 shots.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Roberto GUALTIERI (S&amp;D, IT), Chairman ECON, "The raporteur decided to try to put to the vote his report on the basis of compromise amendments negotiated with ECR, ALDE, EPP. Many political groups suggested that that was not a wise decision, because in any case the Parliament's position would have been weak, even with a small majority. And the result of that is that there was no majority at all." 

SOUNDBITE (English), Gunnar H&#214;KMARK (EPP, SV), Rapporteur, "Regarding the substance, we won and the idea of a mandatory separation was rejected very strongly. But, in the end, the extreme groups gathered and supported the left in saying no to the report as such so, so to say, we could say that we won the battle but not the award ceremony."

SOUNDBITE (English), Gunnar H&#214;KMARK (EPP, SV), Rapporteur, "The next step is to see if the social democrats can move. The reason why we had the vote yesterday was that we had been negotiating, in general, for 20 different negotiation meetings and they haven't given up on the fundamental issue to enforce rules that would force through separation of some kind and we don't think that's what Europe is needing. We need more investment, more market making, more jobs."

SOUNDBITE (English), Jakob WEIZS&#196;CKER (S&amp;D, DE), Shadow rapporteur, "I think yesterday it was an important vote for the committee to demonstrate that we are serious about bank structural reform. We are not prepared to accept a watered-down version of bank structural reform, because we continue to have the problem of 'too big to fail' banks in the EU who can gamble at the expense of taxpayers."

SOUNDBITE (English), Jakob WEIZS&#196;CKER (S&amp;D, DE), Shadow rapporteur, "Clearly we need a report coming from Parliament that makes certain we rein in on the problem of &iexcl;too big to fail', asking for either bank separation or serious capital add-ons for those banks in question and hopefully we will have a broad-based majority."

SOUNDBITE (English), Jakob WEIZS&#196;CKER (S&amp;D, DE), Shadow rapporteur, "There's the question will the Commission withdraw the dossier, I hope it won't, because I think it's sufficiently important to merit a second chance. There's the question of how will discussions continue to go in the Council - they haven't reached a consensus there either - and, of course, the question mark, will we be able to convince some of our colleagues on the, sort of, liberal and right wing of the political spectrum to follow though with a serious bank structural reform." 

SOUNDBITE (English), Sylvie GOULARD (ALDE, FR), Shadow rapporteur, "The allocation of texts is one of the prerogatives of each group. We will have to discuss this toghether, but I see no reason to change the rapporteur, some rapporteurs could also change their minds." 

SOUNDBITE (English), Sylvie GOULARD (ALDE, FR), Shadow rapporteur, "If the Commission maintains the text then we have to reorganize our work inside this House and make sure we can build a larger majority. Once again we have to deliver, we have to find a compromise."

SOUNDBITE (German), Fabio DE MASI (GUE/NGL, DE), Shadow rapporteur, "Mr. H&Ouml;KMARK has failed and I think he is no longer able to be the rapporteur of the Parliament because he is not able to build majorities."

SOUNDBITE (German), Fabio DE MASI (GUE/NGL, DE), Shadow rapporteur, "We want to cleanly separate the banks so that we promote boring, serious bank business, so that credit is directed to the real investments that we desperately need in Europe." 

SOUNDBITE (French), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Shadow rapporteur, "The European Union already has a definition of what it considers to be an important bank, this was defined when we gave the ECB the ability to directly supervise the banks of the eurozone. Let's use this definition that covers 128 banks of the eurozone, let's extend it to the whole European Union - it would then cover 150, 160 or 170 banks - and let's force them to separate their retail banking activity from their investment banking activity."

SOUNDBITE (French), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), Shadow rapporteur, "I think that the European Parliament should begin its work from scratch, probably with a new rapporteur, somebody who feels a little bit more like building a consensus, maybe around Michel BARNIER's text, which is a very slight improvement, but an improvement nevertheless." 