Taxpayers and savers must be the last people called upon to bail out bankers, says Parliament's negotiating position, approved by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on Monday on draft rules on how to save struggling banks. The text rules out using deposits below €100,000 or deposit guarantee funds, and says that even deposits above €100,000 should be the last to be called in. It also sets out strict conditions for using taxpayer's money.
The confusion and delay that surrounded decisions on the Cyprus assistance plan were not only due to Cypriot intransigence. Rather, they reveal a need to radically rethink Eurogroup and Troika working methods, argued Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee MEPs in Wednesday's debate with Commissioner Olli Rehn and ECB Executive Board member Jorg Asmussen.
Pressure to reveal how the Cyprus financial plans were hatched would continue, the chair of Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee, said on Tuesday when she closed a debate with Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem that left various MEPs less than fully satisfied on the quality of the answers provided.
The European Commission's austerity focus was widely lambasted by centre-left MEPs at an Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee meeting with Commissioner Olli Rehn on Thursday, only a week after he last came in for strong criticism in Parliament's plenary chamber. But the centre right's lead MEP urged Mr Rehn to show more bravery and conviction amid growing signs that the Commission may to bow to anti-austerity campaigners.
MEPs quizzed European Central Bank Vice-President Vitor Constancio on what more can be done to help credit flow to businesses and households, whether austerity is the right recipe, ECB transparency and possible interest rate cuts at Wednesday's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee meeting on ECB activities in 2012.
Property buyers would be better informed about the costs and consequences of taking on a mortgage, better protected from market swings while the contract lasts and better protected if they cannot repay the loan, under a provisional deal struck by Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee MEPs and EU member state representatives on Monday. To become law, this deal must be approved by Parliament as a whole and endorsed by the member states.
