ECB’s bank supervisor nominee gets rough ride at confirmation hearing

By Francesco Canepa and Balazs Koranyi

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank’s nominee as chief bank supervisor, Claudia Buch, was given a hard time by European lawmakers at her confirmation hearing, with some even raising objections about the legality of her nomination and her qualifications.

Buch, who has been the vice-president of Germany’s central bank for 10 years after a career in academia, was chosen last week over Spain’s Margarita Delgado, the European Parliament’s preferred candidate.

Most European lawmakers who spoke at the hearing criticised the ECB for disregarding their opinion, which is not binding, when it chose Buch as next chair of the Single Supervisory Board, which oversees the euro zone’s roughly hundred biggest banks.

The EU Parliament will have a final say on the appointment on Wednesday at a vote scheduled for 1400 GMT.

Jonás Fernández, a Socialist from Spain, said Buch’s nomination may have broken a rule barring the ECB from picking a candidate from within its own Governing Council, where Buch is an alternate member to Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel.

The ECB has responded to that objection in a legal opinion seen by Reuters, arguing Buch, as an alternate, was not a member of the Governing Council so that rule did not apply to her.

At the hearing, Buch said she would immediately resign from her role as an alternate if appointed as chief supervisor.

ECB President Christine Lagarde said last week that the 26-member Governing Council followed the rules in Buch’s selection.

LIMITED EXPERIENCE?

Marco Zanni, of the right-wing Identity and Democracy Group, asked Buch how she planned to address what he called her limited experience as bank supervisor compared with the other candidate.

Buch, 57, recalled her decade as the Bundesbank’s board member in charge of financial stability, when she worked closely with bank supervisors and navigated “many difficult situations”.

“I am fully confident in my ability and strengths for this position,” she added.

Responding to another question, Buch said creating a common EU insurance on deposits was crucial, breaking with Germany’s long-held scepticism about an initiative that would see financial resources pooled to save depositors across the bloc.

She cautioned, however, that “national specificities” that work well should be kept, a likely reference to Germany’s own system involving a public and private safety net for depositors.

She also pledged to simplify the annual checks that lenders undergo by cutting routine tasks.

(Additional Reporting by Frank Siebelt; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Alexandra Hudson (NYSE:))

Source link