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Negotiators from the three EU institutions - the Council, the Commission and the Parliament - have finally reached an agreement on a new European structure for supervision of the finance sector. The supervisory package is a corner stone in the series of financial reforms initiated by the European Commission as a reaction to the financial crisis.



UNI Europa Regional Secretary, Bernadette Ségol, said: "UNI Europa welcomes this new agreement. Financial markets do not follow national borders. We must have strong European structures to ensure that financial institutions are properly supervised, so that we do not experience another disasterous crisis". "However", she continues, "things are far from done with this agreement. We still have a long way to go to ensure safe and stable financial markets, which serves ordinary citizens and not the fat cats".



Oliver Röthig, Head of UNI Finance, said: "We are satisfied with this agreement. The new European supervisory authorities will be furnished with stronger powers than we could have hoped for, and will for example be authorised to ban very risky products. And representing employees in the finance sector, we welcome of course in particular the new stakeholder consultation groups, which will be set up for each of the European supervisory authorities, and where employee will have a number of seats. UNI Finance have fought for more involvement of finance workers in financial regulation and supervision for years, and this is a good step in the right direction".



The supervisory package has been subject to strong disagreement between the European Parliament and the Council (the member states) as to how much power the new European level supervisory authorities should be provided with. The European Parliament won this battle, which not only ensures stronger and better European supervision of the finance sector. It is also a victory for the European democracy, where the Parliament has stood together across political parties against the protection of national interests of individual member states.



The agreement was formally approved by member states at the ECOFIN Council meeting 7 September and by the European Parliament on 22 September.