Consultation

Consultation Paper on CEBS's technical advice to the European Commission on options and national discretions (CP18)

Start Date: 22/05/2008 | Deadline: 15/08/2008 | Status: Closed

The Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS) today starts a public consultation on its proposals on options and national discretions in the Capital Requirements Directive as part of developing its response to the European Commission's Call for Technical Advice (No. 10). The consultation is open to all interested parties, including supervised institutions and other market participants.

This consultation paper sets out CEBS's preliminary proposals on the future treatment of options and national discretions identified in its supervisory disclosure framework and some additional provisions that could potentially be construed as national discretions identified by market participants in their responses to CEBS's public questionnaire. When elaborating its views, CEBS has benefited from the input already provided by responses to its public questionnaire and in regular meetings with experts representing a broad range of market participants .
In keeping with the European Commission's better regulation agenda, the preliminary proposals presented are supported by a high level impact assessment/cost-benefit analysis.

CEBS is proposing to keep as a national discretion approximately one fifth of the 152 provisions covered in its analysis, albeit where possible with accompanying proposals to alleviate any negative side effects of these national discretions. In any event, it should be noted that more than one third of these national discretions will expire within a relatively short period. For the other discretions, which form the large majority, CEBS is proposing solutions that it believes can bring about further harmonization of supervisory practices and levelling of the playing field among institutions. Within this group, CEBS is proposing in approximately a quarter of the cases either to keep them or to transform them into supervisory decisions to be implemented and applied on a case by case basis. CEBS believes its proposals strike the right balance between the prudential concerns of its members, the flexibility supervisors need to perform their duties and the interests of domestic and cross-border institutions.

CEBS submits its initial proposals for a public consultation which starts today and runs until 15 August 2008. Early responses will be greatly appreciated and late responses will not be considered. Comments received will be published on CEBS's website unless respondents explicitly request otherwise. Please send your comments to the following e-mail address: cp18@c-ebs.org.

The standard consultation period has been slightly shortened as a result of the tight deadline CEBS is facing to develop its advice. The European Commission expects CEBS to deliver its final advice by October 2008.

Responses