(FT) -- Britain and France are at odds with other European Union countries over plans to insure against future bank failures, in another sign of the problems in trying to forge a common response to the bloc's economic woes.
Michel Barnier, EU internal market commissioner, set out proposals for member states to form national funds to help wind up or reorganise failing banks, funded by a levy on the financial sector.
London immediately rejected the idea, arguing it would introduce "moral hazard" and encourage banks to think the levy was an insurance premium that entitled them to help if they got into trouble. French officials said Paris had similar concerns. George Osborne, chancellor, insisted his proposed bank levy, which could be unveiled in his first Budget on June 22, would go straight into the Treasury's depleted coffers.
"The purpose of the bank levy is to raise money for general expenditure purposes," he said. A French finance ministry official said privately that Paris supported the principle of a tax, but did not want to create a standalone "resolution" fund.
How will Europe's bank levy work?
German government officials suggested Franco-British concerns about moral hazard might have more to do with both countries needing cash from a bank levy to ease strained budgets.
Finance ministry officials in Berlin said the package appeared to be "moving in the right direction". Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister, wants German banks to pay about €1bn (£847m) per year into a separate fund to wind down troubled banks.
Mr Barnier's proposals are an attempt by the European Commission to create a collective response to the banking crisis and to show that it is ready to deal with the prospect of a second-round shock affecting the EU banking sector.
He claims to have devised a scheme that would not bail out failing banks or spare shareholders or creditors, but that could, for example, provide temporary guarantees or finance a "good bank, bad bank" split. "It is not acceptable that taxpayers should continue to bear the heavy cost of rescuing the banking sector - they should not be in the front line," he said.
His plan, will be discussed by EU leaders next month. Brussels hopes for sufficient endorsement to allow it to push the "bank resolution fund" idea at a G20 meeting at the end of June.
There is growing global agreement on the need for a bank levy. But Tim Geithner, US Treasury secretary, said in London that different countries were likely to implement it in different ways: "It's not going to be perfectly uniform."
สมัครสมาชิก:
ส่งความคิดเห็น (Atom)
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น