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Schäuble ready to compromise on banking union

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Published 10 December 2012

German Finance Minster Wolfgang Schäuble has signalled a readiness to compromise on the EU's planned banking union and said leaders are working intensively to agree on a legal framework by Christmas, German media reported.

His comments will revive hopes that European leaders can finish planning a single supervisory mechanism for eurozone banks under the European Central Bank (ECB) by the end of the year as originally planned.

EU finance ministers had been at odds over how the mechanism should be structured and how much power the ECB should have, particularly if it conflicts with its monetary policy aims.

"We are working intensely to get the legal framework for a banking supervisor settled before Christmas," Schäuble told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, in an interview published on Sunday.

"We can start building up the supervisory body in 2013," he added.

Spiegel magazine reported that Schäuble was prepared to seek a compromise with France by suggesting the supervisory body could be domiciled in Paris, rather than at the ECB's headquarters in Frankfurt.

Finance ministers are due to meet on Dec. 12, the day before a European Union summit, to try and reach an agreement before EU leaders gather.

Once the legalities are worked out, the ECB is expected to steadily take over responsibility for overseeing all 6,000 eurozone banks, taking up to a year to complete the process.

ECB supervisory body in Paris?

Negotiating differences had dominated in previous meetings to discuss the banking union. Schäuble, in contrast to French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici, did not want the final say on supervisory issues to rest with the ECB's governing council.

According to Spiegel, Schäuble wants a clear separation between the ECB's supervisory and monetary policy duties. Placing the supervisory body in Paris could help achieve this.

Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann echoed Schäuble's call for a clear separation of monetary policy and supervision and called for a change to the European constitution in order to clarify the separation, in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"I cannot see how with the current legal framework we can transfer supervisory duties to the ECB. A clean legal solution would require a change to the constitution," he told the paper.

Such a change would require extra time and could delay the introduction of an EU-wide banking union. But he added: "If politicians really want a banking union, then they will be able to make the necessary political decisions swiftly."

Next steps: 
  • 12 Dec.: Extraordinary meeting of EU finance ministers expected to iron out differences on banking union
  • 13-14 Dec.: EU summit in Brussels to adopt roadmap for deepening the Economic and Monetary Union in the euro zone
  • By end 2012: EU objective is to agree the legislative framework
  • 2013: Single supervisory framework could become effective
  • By 1 Jan. 2014: Banking union to be fully in place
EurActiv.com with Reuters

COMMENTS

  • I use the term "fictitious capital" to describe what the Big Bankers, public and private, are attempting to inflict on the ordinary 99% people who through their entrepreneur led labour create ALL REAL value, capital included.
    In the middle of the 19th century Karl Marx coined this term to describe the notes and loans that governments and gentry used to finance wars, luxuries, estates and otherwise living beyond their REAL means.
    At that time such paper would accrue during "Boom" times as the economy expanded and would usually max out at around 10-12% of a countries GDP. As long as the good times rolled on it was not a problem, but came a crisis of over production (of all the wrong things) there would be the day of reckoning. Ergo, the bill collectors came and cash not paper promises was the order of the day. This resulted in a variety of ways to settle; some were paid in part or in full but more often bankruptcies and swindles resulted. Then the stage was set for the next cycle - boom bust.
    Today though the situation with 'fictitious' or 'counterfeit' capital is vastly different.
    100 years of pumped up growth for growths sake based on the now discredited ideas of John Maynard Keynes has produced a situation where some 20 times the worlds gross product exists as fictitious capital, a counterfeit collection of deficits, bills, bonds, exchanges, derivatives, swaps and the latest fraud, "quantitive easing". (Le Monde Diplomatique puts it at 50 times)
    $$Dollars, Єєuros, Rubles, Ль, &с…all the same!!

    To grasp the idiocy inherent in these figures imagine approaching your friendly personal banker for a loan, line of credit or mortgage some 20 times your net collateral worth; how far do you suppose that might fly?

    Yet with the above listed gimmicks, that is precisely what members of the bankster clique do amongst themselves.
    Every day we read of new Central and private bank meetings, "Increasing capital base" is their current fad.
    OFF THE WALL!

    There is not a farthing of REAL capital in all of this rat-bag of lies, swindles and manipulations.
    REAL capital is ONLY accumulated labour dedicated to enhancing future production. Ergo entrepreneur led LABOUR (of the 99%) is the only source that can augment existing capital or create new.

    The banksters, led by the IMF, USA FED, and British "financial services" are well aware of this fact but that will not stop them from attempting to download this fraud onto the REAL product of Labour in the form of "bailouts" of "sovereign" debts, to be serviced by taxes on the REAL producers.
    The 99% will be robbed of (much prepaid) social services and benefits to service "debts". “Austerity” it is called when those who had NO hand in running up this fraud are required to pay interest that will amount to 40-60% of the future product of their labour. Gone will be pensions, good schools, decent medical care, infrastructure (e.g. utilities that work reliably), environmental protection; even adequate diets will be history.

    "Let them eat cake!" exclaimed La Royale Marie Antoinette.
    Let them eat (genetically modified) garbage, implies La Grande Dame Christine La Garde, of the International Monetary Fascists(IMF)

    So Greece, you are the front line today, Italy and Spain may be next, but do not think that any country, including the relatively well off Germany or the resource rich Canada and Australia will be forever exempt. Ms Merkel, beware!
    The "poor little ones" are but appetizers; they will whet the appetites of these financial service vultures and jackals. For certain, like buzzards flocking to road kill. if they succeed in the beginning the taste of financial carrion will make them hunger for more, and they will finish only when the 99% of humanity is subject as debtors to enslavement by the 1%.

    But this does not have to be!
    Greece you can repudiate the fraud! Lead the way! DEFAULT is the way to go!

    99%; be inclusive! Support Greece today, Italy Spain, …, &c. tomorrow and.../?/ the world in future.

    Hold on to your souls! Hang tough!
    You have a WORLD to WIN!!

    By :
    david tarbuck
    - Posted on :
    10/12/2012
  • good riddance to the euro,the biggest con game ever devised

    By :
    robert christian
    - Posted on :
    10/12/2012
Background: 

At a summit in October, EU leaders agreed plans to complete the European banking union by January 2014, after the general elections in Germany.

>> Read: EU summit deal aims for full 'banking union' in 2014

The concession was made to German Chancellor Angela Merkel who argued for "quality" over "speed" in putting in place the new supervisory system, seen as a cornerstone of the EU's efforts to end the eurozone' sovereign debt crisis.

The summit deal confirmed the objective of agreeing the legal framework by 1 January 2013.

Once this is agreed, the single supervisory mechanism could probably be effectively operational in the course of 2013, the European Commission said.

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