Bankers' Bonuses: Parliament gives Council one more week

Press statement by Othmar Karas, European Parliament Rapporteur on CRD4/Basel III, and the Shadow Rapporteurs Udo Bullmann (S&D Group), Sharon Bowles (ALDE), Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA) and Vicky Ford (ECR) after the trilogue negotiation meeting on 19 Feb 2013

The European Parliament’s negotiation team regrets that a compromise deal with the Council was not possible at the trilogue yesterday, as the Council Presidency did not have a sufficient mandate. We were surprised to hear that only last Thursday (14 Feb) Coreper discussed political compromises for the first time, which had been found much earlier between the EP and previous Council presidencies.

In yesterday's (19 Feb) negotiation meeting, the Council Presidency re-opened political compromises concluded before between the Council and the Parliament, amongst others on the cap on the ratio of variable to fixed remuneration.

We are ready to give the Council one more week for internal discussions. If - after ten months of negotiations - a viable compromise cannot be found on 27 February, we do not see any other possibility than to ask the plenary of the European Parliament to vote on its position. We hope that at the meeting next week the Council Presidency will have a sufficient mandate for a political agreement.

It has been agreed with the Council Presidency that five areas will be discussed at the meeting on the 27th:

• Flexibility for Member States to impose stricter rules on banks in certain areas of the CRD IV/CRR
• Additional Capital Buffer Requirements for systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) or to address broader systemic risk
• Power of the European Banking Authority (EBA) to mediate on its own initiative in the case of conflicts between national competent authorities
• Possibilities and conditions for the shareholders of banks to allow bankers' variable remuneration to rise up to twice the fixed salary, on the basis that the ratio between the fixed salary and the variable part of the remuneration shall normally be 1:1, as was confirmed at yesterday's (19 Feb) trilogue.
• In the area of Corporate Governance, the question of basic transparency requirements in the way of a disclosure of profits made, taxes paid and subsidies received by the institutions on a country-by-country basis (Country-by-Country-Reporting)

We call on the Council to come to a clear, concise and publicly defensible joint position in these areas.