A hundred and fifty supervisors from countries waiting for accession to the EU are to receive training on the bloc's existing and pending rules on financial supervision as a result of the crisis, according to a statement from the ECB yesterday (19 January).
The beneficiaries of the funds will be the central banks and supervisory authorities in Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Turkey, Serbia and Kosovo.
The scheme will also involve organisations that have participated in EU and global decision-making on post-crisis financial supervision.
An ECB spokesperson said the programme aims "to strengthen the medium-term resilience to financial stress of EU candidate and potential candidate countries, by supporting the adjustment of banking and financial supervision in line with the most recently agreed international and EU standards".
The agreement would help the countries involved to "keep their EU integration processes on track," Olli Rehn, commissioner for enlargement, added in a statement.
According to the ECB, key organisations in the regulatory and supervisory field, such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, the Committee of European Banking Supervisors and the Financial Stability Institute, will present the latest developments in financial supervision to banks in the region.
The European Commission and the European Parliament will contribute their views on policy issues.
The ECB did not stipulate exactly what would be expected of the banks in the training process, but an ECB spokesperson told EurActiv that the challenge will be to ensure that the beneficiary countries "take ownership of the objectives".
