What is an “European bank” and who decides who decides?
José M. de Areilza
October 3, 2008
The global financial crisis is putting the EU system of economic governance to a serious test. The single currency was launched without the rest of the building blocks of an economic federal government. Probably more economic centralization and central coordination was needed but it did not happen after the euro was created on May 2, 1998 nor in the subsequent years -finishing the economic architecture was not even part of the failed constitutional project.
Hence, the supervision and inspection of the financial system is still in the hands of Member States and the EU budget never grew to include enough European resources to use in an European wide /global crisis like the present one. Structural reforms also have been national matters, once the 2000 Lisbon Agenda has faded away. Let’s face it, we have an incomplete system of economic governance in a rather successful single market that is based on non discrimination, freedom of establishment and free movement of capital, and that is of course part of the global financial market.
So, in the present situation of financial crisis, do we still call national banks those who operate in the single market but do it largely according to national rules? Or do we treat them as European banks and seek a common European policy that takes into account all the “negative externalities” out there? The answer is important because consumer protection and guarantee of deposits will depend on it and there are important differences among national legislations, institutional designs and economic means to eventually rescue financial institutions and protect citizens interests.
The Irish have gone their way and irritated other Member States and the EU institutions by taking unilateral measures that discriminate between Irish and non Irish banks, a kind of an emergency State aid, probably agains the EU norms. But the underlying problem is not the Irish government, is the lack of a European policy that would allow EU political institutions to work with national ones and intervene efficiently in the current crisis, i.e., not taking four years to pass a new directive. Even the US with its well established federal system has had problems coordinating states and federal institutions in this area of economic regulation before the crisis.
The European Arrest Warrant: category and practice
Petra Bard
September 30, 2008
The European Arrest Warrant – a highly controversial instrument from the third pillar – is the subject of the following comment. Although it has been agreed upon – following from the nature of framework decisions necessitating unanimity – by all Member States’ representatives, another branch of government, the judiciary was less satisfied with the piece of EU legislation. Many constitutional challenges attacked the framework decision, and piles of academic papers are addressing these. I am not touching upon the constitutional issues here, I will much rather present a case study that can faithfully demonstrate how poorly the legislators’ original intentions are reflected in some of the rulings that refuse the enforcement of arrest warrants.
Irish citizen Ciaran Tobin resided in Hungary, working as the director of an insurance company when on 9 April, 2000, he ran over two small children in the Hungarian village of Leányfalu. Guarded by his grandmother, one of the victims was standing on the sidewalk, with the other victim, his sister sitting in her pram next to him, when Ciaran Tobin’s car traveling at a speed between 75-80 km/h way above the allowed speed-limit knocked down the children, who both died on the spot. Although Ciaran Tobin’s travel documents were taken away during the criminal process, he eventually received his passport back upon the request that he wished to go home to attend the wedding of his wife’s sister. He deposited the sum of HUF 500,000 in the form of a so-called insurance, as prescribed in the Hungarian Criminal Procedural Code. He authorized his lawyer to receive his official letters and the trial went on in his absence.
It is unclear why the Hungarian authorities decided to permit Tobin to leave the country on the grounds of the above given circumstances, in view of the fact that during the period in question there was no extradition agreement between the two countries, on the basis of which Ireland would have been obliged to extradite the defendant to Hungary. (more…)
Praise for EuroPriSe
Tomás F. Serna
September 23, 2008
The European Privacy Seal (EuroPrise), project is an interesting initiative lead by the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection Schleswig-Holstein (Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz, ULD). This body is the local data protection authority of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost federal state of Germany.
Funded under the European Commission’s eTen Programme, it currently consists in a nine European partner consortium to which Madrid’s Data Protection Authority is a party.
At its essence, what this program is aiming to do is to establish a voluntary certification program by which any company or individual could: a) Gain assurance that her product or service is in compliance with EU data protection Laws, and b) Send a message to the marketplace and to consumers (end-users) stating: We take user’s privacy seriously. Should you choose to use this product or service, rest assured that nothing funny is taking place regarding your personal information. See, we have this seal to prove it. (more…)
Europa sin velocidad
José M. de Areilza
2 de julio, 2008
El presidente polaco Lech Kaczynski ha decidido no firmar por ahora el Tratado de Lisboa, a la vista del no irlandés y de las dudas checas, y aprovechando que Alemania anunció el lunes que su Tribunal Constitucional debe pronunciarse sobre el nuevo texto y que no lo hará antes de principios de 2009. Con estas noticias se han complicado las posibilidades de que entren en vigor a corto plazo las reformas europeas. Por fortuna, el gemelo Kaczynski no representa el sentir de la mayoría de los polacos, pero está dispuesto a usar a su favor las debilidades presentes de la Unión para crecer en votos con un discurso a partes iguales nacionalista y populista. El caso alemán es más peliagudo. Angela Merkel encabezó hace unos días en el Consejo Europeo el grupo de líderes europeos decididos a proseguir la ratificación de Lisboa a pesar del no irlandés, dando por hecho que su país tenía vía libre para hacerlo. Como acostumbra a hacer últimamente en foros internacionales, la canciller adoptó un tono de superioridad moral para recordar a los demás cuáles eran sus deberes. El presidente de la República Federal, Horst Koehler, ha tenido que frenarla in extremis y recordarla que hay dos pleitos constitucionales pendientes sobre el Tratado de Lisboa y que por lo tanto la ratificación alemana tiene que esperar.
De este modo, ayer Nicolas Sarkozy empezó su presidencia semestral de la UE con un dolor de cabeza más, mientras su ministro Kouchner, mucho mejor médico que diplomático, amenazaba con volar los procesos de ampliación pendientes en respuesta a los noes, titubeos y retrasos en la firma del nuevo Tratado. El problema de fondo no es tanto el retraso seguro en la aplicación de unas nuevas reglas del juego, que facilitan la toma de decisiones europea. Lo grave es el bloqueo psicológico (more…)
Corporate Sanctions and Individual Penalties
Christian Bulzomí
April 24, 2008
The discussion about the enforcement of EC competition law in Europe has been revitalized by the publication of the Commission White Paper on Damages actions for breach of EC antitrust rules (on which you can find our previous post here).
In my personal view, private enforcement of competition law is part of a complex policy which aims first and foremost at avoiding infringements of competition law and secondly to correct anti-competitive behaviour through the compensation of the losses caused, whereas the sanctioning of the companies infringing the rules on competition constitutes an instrument for the obtainment of the two mentioned goals. (more…)
Facilitating Compensation for Victims of Infringements of EC Antitrust Rules
Charlotte Leskinen
April 10, 2008
Last week, the European Commission published its White Paper on Damages actions for breach of the EC antitrust rules (available here). The principles of the White Paper are developed in more detail in the accompanying Commission Staff Working Paper (see here). The White Paper presents policy options and specific measures to ensure that all victims of infringements of the EC competition rules have access to effective redress mechanisms in order to obtain full compensation for the harm that they have suffered as a result of the infringements. To date, only a small number of the victims have been compensated for the loss that they have suffered, since the national rules that govern antitrust damages actions contain several legal and procedural obstacles to enforcing the Community right to damages for antitrust infringements. (more…)