EU public meeting over bank regulation - "overwhelmingly dominated by bank lobbyists" - TruePublica
EU public meeting over bank regulation – “overwhelmingly dominated by bank lobbyists”
Fixing finance: one step forwards, two steps back?
By New Economics Foundation – Tomorrow, officials at the European Union will gather to hear evidence on the impact of changes to the rules governing big banks made since the financial crisis of 2008.
This is part of a wider review set up to identify “unnecessary regulatory burdens” on financial services. As Finance Watch has pointed out, it’s somewhat peculiarly timed.
Much of the regulation drafted in response to the crisis isn’t even national law yet: so how can we assess its impact?
Why review this now?
The reason for this eagerness was made clear in a recent speech by Lord Hill, the European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union:
“What makes this review urgent? The lack of growth across Europe.
That’s one of the reasons why… we shouldn’t overregulate and interfere
too much.”
This is puzzling given that the roots of Europe’s slow economic
growth go back to the very same crisis these rules were responding to in
the first place: the global financial crash.
When it comes to the supposed benefits of deregulation – which the UK
is pushing hard as the price for our continued membership of the EU –
you could scarcely pick a worse poster-child than the banking sector.
