The European Commission is planning to give the European Central Bank authority to control all the leading banks in Eurozone nations including cooperative and savings banks, German daily Handelsblatt reported on Friday quoting EC sources.
A draft law will be promulgated on September 11 in Brussels, the paper says. Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the end of July that the ECB should maintain oversight of the leading 25 banks in the Eurozone.
"Plans for bank control for the most important banks is on the European agenda," said Germany's Justice Minister Sabine Leuthesser-Schnarrenberger. "For savings banks and cooperative banks which enjoy a high level of trust and deal with the crisis well, there will be no demand for increased control."
At the same time, the paper says, the European Commission does not want the ECB to turn into a universal bank, and daily oversight will as previously agreed remain under national authority. In Germany, this is the duty of the Federal Authority for Oversight of Financial Operations (Bafin) and the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank.
