The EU has agreed landmark rules capping bank bonuses after an agreement between MEPs and governments struck in the small hours of Thursday (28 February). The deal, which also increases the amount of capital banks must keep on their balance sheets, will cap bonus payments at the same level as the annual salary, with special dispensation to pay a bonus of up to twice the salary if an absolute majority of shareholders vote for the higher payment. The regime, which is composed of a directive and a regulation, puts the rules drafted by the Basel III committee of the Swiss-based Bank of International Settlements into EU law.
The UK government was among the opponents to the new bonus regime, with national officials claiming that banks would merely hike salaries in order to attract top staff.London Mayor Boris Johnson condemned what he described as "self-defeating policies” adding that “Brussels cannot control the global market for banking talent. The most this measure can hope to achieve is a boost for Zurich and Singapore and New York at the expense of a struggling EU,” he said.
The package increases the amount of capital that banks need to hold, as well as a leverage ratio to limit excessive build-up of borrowing on banks’ balance sheets. It introduces capital buffers on top of the minimum capital requirements.
Austrian conservative MEP, Othmar Karas, who led the European Parliament's negotiating team on the package, said that "for the first time in the history of EU financial market regulation, we will cap bankers' bonuses.""But this is not the most important part of the new rules. The essence is that from 2014, European banks will have to set aside more money to be more stable and concentrate on their core business, namely financing the real economy, that of small and medium-sized enterprises and jobs," he added.
Irish finance minister Michael Noonan, who brokered the deal, said "this overhaul of EU banking rules will make sure that banks in the future have enough capital, both in terms of quality and quantity, to withstand shocks. This will ensure that taxpayers across Europe are protected into the future." (...)
The EU and US have already missed the original deadline of January 2013 to begin the implementation of Basel III, but are expected to apply the regime from January 2014.
Euobserver
Thursday, February 28, 2013
EU agrees to cap bank bonuses, lift capital requirements
Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 16:14 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: Austria, Basel III, EMU, Eurozone, Financial crises, Ireland, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA
Slovenian government collapses
Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 13:19 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: Employment, Financial crises, Growth, Slovenia
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Italy in turmoil after election delivers hung parliament
Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 13:14 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: Financial crises, Italy
Monday, February 25, 2013
Cyprus bailout in sight as new president elected
Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 14:32 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: Cyprus, Eurozone, Financial crises, Germany, Greece, Russia, Ukraine
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Lemondott a bolgár kormány
Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 11:39 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Energy, Financial crises
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
EU Launches Military Training Mission in Mali
Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 10:47 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: Defence, ESDP, France, High Representative, Mali
Thursday, February 14, 2013
EU, U.S. to start free trade talks
"The more problematic side of myriad different PTAs is that they create a hodgepodge of different regulations, standards and norms that can evolve into serious non-tariff barriers," said Keith Rockwell, chief spokesman at the Geneva-based WTO. He said it was too early to say what the impact of an EU-U.S. deal would be. U.S. and EU officials countered the criticism by saying their deal would set global standards for the world to follow in lowering a wider range of trade barriers.
However, creating jobs and economic growth on either side of the North Atlantic provide the main rationale for their alliance, given both economies are struggling to break free from almost five years of downturns and stunted recovery as well as increasing competition from China and other emerging economies.
The deal has support at the highest level, give an name check by Obama in his speech to Congress on Tuesday and cast as a central pillar of Britain's presidency of the G8 this year.
Under an agreed outline for the deal, the two sides expect it to add 0.5 percent to the EU economy and 0.4 percent to the U.S. economy by 2027, or 86 billion euros ($116 billion) a year for the Europeans and 65 billion euros for the Americans.
But EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht has warned that the talks will be tough, with no "low hanging fruit". Import tariffs between the two are already not high - an average of 4 percent.
Negotiations will focus on harmonizing standards, from car seat belts to household cleaning products, and regulations governing services. These help ensure exporters can compete.
But fleshing out the negotiating plans could cause friction - last year it took EU trade ministers four months to persuade the European car industry to let Brussels officials talk to Japan about creating a similar free-trade pact.
AGRICULTURAL MUD
One of the key sticking points is likely to be agriculture, even though the deal will not tackle the politically poisonous issue of farm subsidies. When a Transatlantic trade deal was mooted in 1998, it was shot down by France, which feared Europe could be forced into too many concessions on farm trade.
"There is a reason we have not launched an effort of this nature in the past, because of some of these historic difficult issues that have frustrated our ambition," said U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk.
Leaders' fears of prolonged slump, however, may help a deal. Froman at the White House said the United States now believed "the stars could well be aligned, given developments on both sides of the Atlantic for us to resolve issues that we've never been able to resolve before".
Washington has long been frustrated by EU restrictions on U.S. farm produce, such as foodstuffs made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), poultry treated with chlorine washes and meat from animals fed with the growth stimulant ractopamine.
In an early sign of EU reticence, Barroso said the negotiations would not compromise consumer health. "We will not negotiate changes that we do not want of the basic rules on either side, be it on hormones or GMOs," he said.
French Trade Minister Nicole Bricq said she would back a deal if it benefited France, long a vocal defender of its agricultural interests: "I will ensure that French interests are heard," she said.
Kirk said everything was on the table, "including all across the agricultural sector, whether it's GMOs or other issues". Froman said agricultural issues were not being put off but would be resolved before and during the main negotiation.
Another thorny issue that is unlikely to be resolved directly by the EU-U.S. negotiation is the battle over subsidies for Europe's Airbus and Boeing of the United States, the biggest and longest-running dispute in the WTO's history. But it could improve the mood and help usher in a settlement in the aircraft dispute.
Brussels has been negotiating possible free-trade agreements with more than 80 other countries, with some successes, such as a recent deal set to be struck with Singapore. But some talks, such as those with India, show no signs of ending. Talks with Canada since 2009 have also failed to settle differences over agriculture, intellectual property and public procurement.
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Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 12:21 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: Agriculture, China, Consumers, Employment, Enterprise and Industry, European Commission, External Trade, France, Internal Market, Public Health, United Kingdom, USA, WTO
Friday, February 8, 2013
EU leaders agree budget cuts
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Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 12:03 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: ALDE, Budget, Denmark, EPP-ED, European Council, European Parliament, Greens, MFF, Netherlands, President, S. and D., Sweden
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Deal shaping up at EU budget summit
- The majority of the cuts come from the Connecting Europe Facility (sub-heading 1a “Competitiveness for growth and jobs”)
- An extra €1 billion was slashed from the administrative budget (less expected)
- The British and German rebates were untouched; the Danes won a rebate of €134 million, but these were still subject to negotiation, with the Netherlands and Sweden unlikely to be content with the €650 and €160 million rebates on offer to them; Austria's rebate was to be halved.
- The Common Agricultural Policy funding would rise slightly under the deal.
Bejegyezte: Krissons dátum: 11:49 0 megjegyzés
Címkék: Administration, Agriculture, Austria, Budget, Connecting Europe Facility, Denmark, European Council, France, Germany, MFF, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom
Monday, February 4, 2013
Nato chief: EU must spend more on military
"We saw that in Libya and in Mali the US has had to come and provide Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance assets, they have had to provide air-to-air refuelling tankers for jets," he noted. "These are just two capabilities where we have huge European shortfalls. The Europeans must invest to fill the gaps," he added.(...)"Security challenges won't wait while we fix our finances. And more cuts now will lead to greater insecurity in the future, at a cost we simply can't afford," he said.
For his part, US vice president Joe Biden told Munich that the US' new emphasis on Asia does not mean it will forget its World-War-II-and-Cold-War-era ally. "Europe is the cornerstone of our engagement with the world ... This engagement [with Asian countries] does not come at Europe's expense," he said. He noted that the fight against jihadists in north Africa "is fundamentally in America's interest." (...)
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