The EU has issued a notice saying:
In order to ensure direct communication between the banking industry, consumers and the European Commission, a Group of Experts in Banking Issues (GEBI) will be set up with the following mandate:
1. To give advice and opinions on the policies and possible legislative measures of the EC in the field of banking (including capital requirements, supervision, conglomerates, bank accounting, crisis management, and deposit guarantee schemes);
2. To provide information, forecasts and analysis concerning the background, and possible impact of banking policies and legislative proposals on various stakeholders.
The requirement for membership?:
- proven knowledge, competence and experience, including at European or international level, in the field of banking regulation.
-commitment to European issues and the internal market in financial services, ability to talk to relevant industry and public entities, willingness to commit time, neutrality and fair judgement;
- interest in formulating policies in banking regulation to respond to the challenges created by the financial crisis;
And the reward?:
Members will receive no remuneration for their duties in connection with the activities of the expert group, nor will they receive reimbursement of travel and subsistence expenses in connection with their attendance at meetings of the group.
So what will we get? Bankers talking to bankers and saying stakeholders want what bankers want.
I despair.
The EU / EC should:
a) Allocate seats to stakeholder groups
b) Fund them
c) Make clear they can issue minority reports if need be
d) Provide them with technical support.
Then we’d have meaningful debate. Right now there will be none.
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Richard
What constitutes a ‘stakeholder group’?
Can anyone (including those with no banking background at all) form one regardless of what their angle or the nature of their interest or size of membership/constituency? I personally wish for more competition in banking and view excessive regulation as a barrier to entry, so I’d jump at the chance to have my say and to get paid for doing so.
On what basis will my group be funded? Do we all get the same regardless?
Presumably there will be stakeholder groups that are in conflict with each other. Do we want this to become a battleground for competing groups fighting for their own interests rather than the job at hand?
@Juliet
You know the answer to your question already
And maybe you do have a right – if your organisation can be recognised as being of sufficient standing – to be represented
The application form indicates measures of standing
Richard
Sorry Richard, but I must have misunderstood your post.
I thought your point was that by requiring ‘standing’ you will end up with the same old faces and that you thought that was not a good thing. I thought you wanted to do away with the concept.
I agree that the thing should be opened up, but I don’t agree that every Tom Dick and Harry (or even those with ‘standing’) should be entitled to public funds to have their say.
Juliet
Of course you don’t
You ant the financially privileged to get their way on all occasions
I fully understand what you mean
Richard
“You ant the financially privileged to get their way on all occasions”
Huh? Why do you think I am financially privileged? Every penny I have ever had has been earned!
Please address the point, stop arguing by personal slurs and ill-judged generalisations about people you don’t know.
Why should the taxes of a bus driver (forced to pay under pain of jail) go to unelected and unaccountable pressure groups? And if such taxes should be used for such purposes, why should it be only available to a select group that happens to have ‘standing’ (whatever that is).
Juliet
No you answer my question – which is why should the bus driver have to suffer regulation written by bankers for the benefit of bankers and not bus drivers/
And since he’s living on £20,000 or less a year – why should he be forced to offer his opinion unpaid
And how is it democratic that he be denied the right to do so for lack of cash?
Richard
Richard
Answer to your question: there is no principle in democracy I am aware of anywhere where a citizen has an automatic right to payment from public funds to enable him/her to lobby government. To suggest such a right would surely result in mayhem as every Tom Dick and Harry lined up for funds. The bus driver (or anyone else) simply does not have that right anywhere as far as I am aware. It doesn’t exist as a concept in any human rights convention or in any serious work on human rights or democracy anywhere that I am aware of.
It would indeed be very expensive for any individual to acquaint himself with the very technical knowledge required to even discuss bank regulation (or utility regulation or broadcasting regulation or airline regulation and everything else that affects the citizen), and then to lobby.
A person would be much better off relying on other bodies (or which he may or may not be a member — such as a trade union or industry body) to do so on his behalf. There are plenty of well funded bodies more than able to undertake this, without requiring access to the public teat.
But to allow the right to access to public funds to some (i.e. those with ‘standing’ – code in my opinion for ‘the same old faces’) but not to others (i.e. without ‘standing’ – code for ‘those whose faces don’t fit) is distorting and unfair.
You regularly tell us we don’t collect enough tax. If that’s so, then surely there are more pressing demands on the revenue than this.
@Juliet
Isn’t supporting democracy the best use of taxpayer funds you can think of?
I’d call supporting the process of representation very important indeed
And I go back to my accusation implicit in what you write – you want to reserve if only for those with resources
Let’s call them bankers in this case
I’m blunt in my opinion -that is anti-democratic. You are entitled to disagree, but you’ll have to make a new argument to do so here
Richard
“Isn’t supporting democracy the best use of taxpayer funds you can think of?”
To a point yes. Properly run elections etc, running registers of interests of MPs etc. Money indeed well spent.
But to extend that to suggest a person has a right to public funding for whatever view he or she wishes to peddle (and to suggest it is undemocratic to think otherwise) is a straw man. We would end up spending on nothing else!
And to think bankers will be the only ones able to turn up and have a say on banking regulation is being a little over dramatic. There will be plenty of other groups lining up for a say, and not all of them with a love of bankers.
Is there any reason the TUC won’t be able to show up?
Maybe
But the TUC cannot represent everyone
The whole point about civil society is that those without vested interest also need a say
I rest my case
And do not think you have made yours
What is your case? Are you saying that in the name of democracy we should be funding everybody who asks for a say?
My case is that whilst everyone is entitled to a say, they shouldnt; be entitled to public funding for that purpose. It would be unworkable and way too costly and open to all kinds of abuse (‘barking’ would be another way of putting it), and yet you say I haven’t made that case? I doubt I could find a sane person who disagreed with me.
Juliet
I assure you I am very sane
And I have not made the straw man argument you seek to argue with
Go back to that word ‘standing’
And very politely – stop wasting my time
This debate is closed
Richard
I am not sure that many bus drivers are well qualified to offer views on bank capital requirements, supervision, conglomerates, bank accounting, crisis management, and deposit guarantee schemes. I could be wrong however…
So you’re saying they don’t count?
Even though they’re footing the bill?
I am not saying that at all.
I am not qualified to offer a view on such subjects and I am most certainly footing my share of the bill.
So I am so to speak one of your ‘bus drivers’ (even if I don’t actually drive a bus for a living).
I just have no interest in self appointed busy bodies seeking to climb aboard the Brussels gravy train Claiming to be my alleged “stakeholder representative”. We have enough unaccountable, unelected supposed ‘experts’ meddling in things at the public’s expense. Why would we want more?
So you’d agree self appointed bankers should not be there if no one else is funded to be then?
I am happy for anyone who cares enough to go. Just not at my expense.
@VernonGodLittle
Which neatly covers your real agenda and that of all libertarians – let wealth rule
Not at all – I expect my elected (and paid, at my expense) representatives to ensure that wealth does not rule. I want to live in a democracy, not a quangocracy.
I’d take any bus driver’s opinion on banking over Fred “the Shred” Goodwin any day.
This EU thing sounds like a completely Mickey Mouse effort unless they actually pick a wide range of stakeholders and reimburse them for expenses to go to regular meetings. Otherwise, who can afford to go to Brussels regularly except the bankers?
I’m going to write to my Euro MP (either the Labour or Lib Dem one) to find out what the justification is for setting the group up like this and asking them to lobby for more stakeholder representation, not just banking industry cronies.
Howard
It’s great to have another voice of reason on here
Richard