Barroso chides govts over financial crisis

Big member states have long blocked closer regulatory integration that might have prepared the European Union better for the current financial crisis, the head of the EU's executive arm said on Thursday.
"We all know that before this crisis there was no chance to introduce more European regulation. Some of the most relevant member states in economic and financial dimension would not ever have accepted it," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told a seminar organised by the Friends of Europe think-tank.
He did not name countries, but key EU players include Britain, which has the leading financial centre, Germany, the bloc's largest economy and biggest paymaster, and Luxembourg, which relies on a thriving offshore banking industry.
Even after the crisis escalated in September, hitting European banks hard, he said, EU governments failed to cooperate sufficiently as shown by divisions over plans to streamline financial supervision in the bloc.
Barroso said the Commission had tried to promote closer integration in the EU's banking and insurance industries, and among their supervisory bodies, but efforts were restrained because the EU executive knew opposition was looming.
"It would completely unfair to say that the Commission was the one resisting a more European approach in this area. On contrary, the Commission was asked not to do more by very relevant actors," he said.
He was responding in part to criticism from European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering, who told the same conference the EU executive had failed to respond to demands by lawmakers for proposals for EU-wide supervision of financial markets, hedge funds, private equity and sovereign wealth funds.
"Parliament has been asking for proposals for years and nothing has happened," Poettering said, noting that the EU legislature called again on Sept. 23 for comprehensive proposals on financial regulation.
Barroso responded that in the sensitive area of financial markets, it made no sense for Brussels to make proposals it knew would be immediately shot down by the main member states.
EU finance ministers agreed this week on general rules on rescuing banks and on raising the minimum guarantee for savers' deposits from 20,000 euros ($27,450) to 50,000.
However, they decided that all concrete action would be up to national governments.
The EU's 27 governments also remain divided over the planned Solvency II rules on the insurance market and on the need to set up a pan-EU financial supervisor.
"There is not yet agreement about the need for a coordinated response, for instance, on a supervisory authority," Barroso said.
He confirmed that after proposing new capital requirements for banks, the Commission would present next week a draft law regulating credit rating agencies, blamed partly by many analysts for failing to spot financial excesses.
He added he expected resistance of some member states to capital requirements legislation.
He appealed against protectionism in Europe, which some politicians say could increase as a result of the crisis.
"If we allow protectionist tendencies or even some tendencies towards renationalisation of European policies, I think it would be very dangerous for the future and for our economies," he said.