The Centralisation of European Financial Regulation and Supervision: Is There a Need for a Single Enforcement Handbook?

摘要

The Banking Union is at an important juncture post the period of institution building, with policy pronouncements being published by the ECB about how it will go about undertaking its task of supervision within the eurozone. These attempt to explain how it will address the complex task of supervising banks within a multilayered framework of regional and domestic rule-making and oversight. This paper assesses the ECB's approach to supervision and enforcement and the extent to which its approach to supervision is clear enough to overcome the challenges of a multilayered structure and whether or not the constituent parts understand the culture of regulation and supervision it espouses to ensure the multilayered model combines together in a coherent manner. This paper suggests that this is without a doubt a challenge due partly to the limited jurisdiction of the ECB as a prudential regulator and supervisor. The paper proposes a single enforcement approach and a single enforcement handbook to complement the regulatory and supervisory processes under the European Single Rulebook and Single Supervisory Handbook. It is argued that this would assist the process of interpreting and understanding how supervision and enforcement will work and reduce the expectations gap between the ECB and the regulated.