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Procedura : 2017/2005(INI)
Ciclo di vita in Aula
Ciclo del documento : A8-0235/2017

Testi presentati :

A8-0235/2017

Discussioni :

PV 03/07/2017 - 26
CRE 03/07/2017 - 26

Votazioni :

PV 04/07/2017 - 6.5

Testi approvati :

P8_TA(2017)0279

Resoconto integrale delle discussioni
Lunedì 3 luglio 2017 - Strasburgo

26. Verso un quadro paneuropeo per le obbligazioni garantite (breve presentazione)
Video degli interventi
Processo verbale
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  Przewodniczący. – Kolejnym punktem porządku dnia jest sprawozdanie sporządzone przez Bernda Luckego w imieniu Komisji Gospodarczej i Monetarnej zatytułowane „W kierunku ogólnoeuropejskich ram dotyczących obligacji zabezpieczonychˮ (2017/2005(INI)) (A8-0235/2017).

 
  
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  Bernd Lucke, rapporteur. – Mr President, covered bonds have been a very successful debt instrument for more than 200 years in Europe. They are convenient and efficient for the issuing institutions and they are reliable assets for investors, in particular for financial institutions.

This success relies on basically two factors. Factor one is economic: economically the success relies on the existence of high-quality collateral on long-lasting assets which are easily valued and repossessed. The second factor is institutional: institutionally the success relies on the existence of a legal and supervisory framework, such as dual recourse, segregation of cover pools and special public supervision.

Given the success of covered bonds, EU law has granted preferential treatment to covered bonds over other assets in various pieces of European legislation, in particular in the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR), in the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) and in the Liquidity Coverage Requirement (LCR) delegated act.

This preferential treatment is only justified if the collateral quality is high, so the first factor that I have mentioned is indeed satisfied. However, the problem is that Union law lacks a clear definition of covered bonds. The Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) Directive definition is silent on precisely this first factor, on the quality of assets, relying merely on the institutional characteristics of covered bonds. This is not enough to warrant preferential treatment.

On the other hand, if we look at the second factor – the institutional environment – this suggests that the institutional environment might be expanded to other types of assets, perhaps more risky and less liquid types of assets and covered pools, such as SME credits, infrastructure projects which are not guaranteed by government, or consumer credits, and possibly to shipping finance.

The European Parliament is suggesting drawing a distinction between three different categories of assets, with the third and final class not called ‘covered bond’ but ‘European secured note’. We would like to distinguish between premium covered bonds and ordinary covered bonds, where the premium covered bonds are those which satisfy the higher criteria on the quality of assets that are specified in the CRR, whereas the ordinary covered bonds are merely UCITS compatible.

Parliament is also appealing to national lawmakers to distinguish clearly higher-risk or lower-liquidity assets from those assets which are eligible for UCITS-type covered bonds, leaving SME credits, infrastructure investments and consumer credits to a new instrument which, as I have said, would be called European secured notes.

Expanding the institutional environment to these riskier or less liquid classes of assets would be growth-enhancing, we believe, and would serve the objectives of the Capital Markets Union. Moreover, the European Union’s covered bond framework could then be a sort of gold standard for developing covered bond markets world-wide and could open up the EU capital market for issuers in third countries which make use of this efficient debt instrument, provided they have developed a comparable institutional framework.

However, we insist that EU legislation be principles-based. One of the principles which should not be compromised is financial stability, and we therefore advise that soft bullet and conditional pass-through structures, which shift issuer risk to investors, may play an important role in preventing fire sales in the event of defaulter resolution, but they should be used only in these cases and only with approval of the supervisory authority.

To conclude, what remains to be done, and what this report is silent on, is to remove the market distortions which set CBs at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis government bonds. Zero-risk weights for government bonds strongly influence buyers’ market demand by banks in favour of government bonds and are a great impediment in disentangling sovereign debt crisis from banking crisis.

It would be preferable to have all risk weights reflect market assessments of risk, and thereby remove a market distortion which disfavours CBs and involves great systemic risk. It would be good if the legislative proposal which the Commission will present to Parliament also addresses this issue.

 
  
 

Zgłoszenia z sali

 
  
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  Stanislav Polčák (PPE). – Pane předsedající, já i u této zprávy si myslím, že by bylo vhodné, abychom o ní diskutovali, protože je velmi kvalitní a tato odborná debata je k takto zásadní otázce, myslím, velmi nutná. Bohužel budou to pouze jednotlivá vystoupení, ve kterých nelze komunikovat vše.

Já bych chtěl panu zpravodajovi podtrhnout to, co i ve své zprávě má, to znamená důležitost transparentnosti při řešení otázky krytých dluhopisů. Požadavek na transparentnost je, myslím si, naprosto důležitý. Zároveň je podstatné, abychom budovali důvěru ve finanční stabilitu. To podtrhl i zpravodaj ve svém vystoupení. Podle mého názoru je důležité, aby prémiové a běžné kryté dluhopisy a evropské zajištěné cenné papíry byly plně kryté portfoliem těch aktiv. Ono je to v té zprávě vyzdviženo, ale myslím si, že by to mělo tady být zdůrazněno ve vazbě na tu stabilitu. Bohužel v té jedné minutě jsem chtěl ještě hovořit o zajištění vůči úpadku, ale to už se nepodařilo.

 
  
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  Nicola Caputo (S&D). – Signor Presidente, onorevoli colleghi, il rafforzamento delle prospettive di lungo periodo di crescita economica dell'Unione europea e dei paesi terzi è garantito anche dagli strumenti finanziari, ed in particolar modo dalla trasparenza del loro utilizzo. Mi sono più volte espresso sul tema, anche riguardo all'Unione dei mercati dei capitali, che ha come caposaldo proprio la trasparenza delle attività sia di borsa che di risparmio. Il successo dei covered bonds può essere ricondotto a due fattori: economico, anche facilmente quantificabile e recuperabile, ed istituzionale, dovuto alla dotazione di un quadro normativo e di vigilanza che garantisce affidabilità e trasparenza.

Oggi che le obbligazioni garantite stanno diventando comuni in molti paesi fuori dall'Unione europea, qualunque iniziativa legislativa deve essere attentamente ponderata, senza modifiche rilevanti delle regole, che creerebbero incertezza sui mercati. La normativa europea non deve provocare perturbazione nella normativa nazionale. Concordo con la relazione ove propone di continuare a stabilire i tassi minimi del rapporto prestito/valore tramite la normativa europea, lasciando che gli standard tecnici siano decisi liberamente dagli Stati membri.

 
  
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  Νότης Μαριάς ( ECR). – Κύριε Πρόεδρε, θα ήθελα να ευχαριστήσω το συνάδελφο, τον κύριο Lucke, για την έκθεσή του και να αναφερθώ στη σελίδα 17, όπου γίνεται λόγος για το γνωστό πρόγραμμα αγοράς στοιχείων ενεργητικού της ΕΚΤ, δηλαδή το QE. Θέλω να επισημάνω ότι το 60% του QE έχει πάει πλέον στη Γερμανία και το 20% στη Γαλλία. Ταυτόχρονα, η Ελλάδα έχει μείνει εκτός ποσοτικής χαλάρωσης αλλά η Τράπεζα της Ελλάδος, ως μέλος του ευρωσυστήματος, συμμετέχει στην ποσοτική χαλάρωση και το 2015 και 2016 δαπάνησε 42,5 δισεκατομμύρια EUR για να αγοράσει είτε ομόλογα του ESM, ο οποίος εν συνεχεία δάνεισε την Ελλάδα και επέβαλε μνημόνιο, είτε ομόλογα της Ευρωπαϊκής Τράπεζας Επενδύσεων, η οποία στη συνέχεια δάνεισε στη Fraport που άρπαξε τα περιφερειακά αεροδρόμια. Αυτή είναι η διαδικασία η οποία επικρατεί σήμερα, με αφορμή την ποσοτική χαλάρωση. Απαράδεκτη!

 
  
 

(Koniec zgłoszeń z sali)

 
  
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  Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the Commission. – Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bernd Lucke, for presenting this report. We welcome the support the report gives to the harmonisation of covered bonds at EU level. We also welcome the broad consensus among political groups on the way forward. This is encouraging in view of our future work and the upcoming proposal. As announced in the Capital Markets Union mid-term review, the Commission intends to present a legislative proposal on covered bonds in the first quarter of next year.

An EU initiative in my view should serve two complementary purposes. First, we should stimulate covered bond markets as a stable and cheap source of funding for credit institutions, and in return, banks should be able to better finance the real economy. Second, we should make sure that our framework is robust enough to justify the preferential prudential treatment granted to it, for instance, in the form of preferential capital risk weights.

We welcome the key point made in your report in favour of a principle-based approach, building on the strengths and specificities of existing national frameworks – an approach that would respect the characteristics of national markets that are already working well. The Commission will certainly keep this approach in mind when designing our proposals.

In addition, there is a great potential in developing covered bond markets in EU countries that do not have them yet, and also in attracting third-country investors. A robust and widely recognised EU covered bond label would be a major help in this regard. We will be analysing all these elements in the impact assessment that will help us to design the future proposal.

We note your interest in building on the success of EU covered bonds in areas where this label cannot be used at this stage. I am referring to the so-called European Secured Notes. The Commission is currently assessing the case for developing this new product. We will decide on possible Commission initiatives on European Secured Notes, following the results of our assessment. However, in the first stage, we will concentrate our action on traditional instruments backed by mortgages or public sector loans.

Let me conclude by stressing again the appreciation of the work done by the European Parliament. It is a source of encouragement for our future cooperation in this important field.

 
  
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  Przewodniczący. – Zamykam debatę.

Głosowanie odbędzie się we wtorek 4 lipca 2017 r.

 
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