G20/BCBS/FSB Proposal and their Integration into European Framework

After the crisis, the leading international political actors realized that to reaffirm the global nature of finance a new balance was necessary, where the revision and hardening of regulatory standards had to go hand in hand with new mechanisms capable of soothing national fears. In the banking industry, the new balance mainly concerns three elements: a revision of the Basel framework, a novel mechanism of crisis resolution for the SIBs and the introduction of structural measures. We show that a tension exists between fully restoring global finance and erecting national safeguards. This implies redrafting the axiom of the level playing field, previously based on the harmonization of rules. Despite the goal of designing for the entire Union a single rulebook and supervisory handbook, different national reactions to the crisis and the widening and deepening of regulation have sharpened inside the EU existing differences. While countries adhering to the banking union are sailing towards enhanced harmonization, the other EU member countries obtained relevant national discretion to be inserted in the new directives and regulations. The EU is thus not fully escaping the general tendency to leave single jurisdictions to deal with cross-border banking by judging the equivalence of results, not by the compliance with specific rules.