The European Boards of Bank Supervision and Bank Resolution: Balancing independence with democratic accountability? Articles uri icon

publication date

  • October 2022

start page

  • 77

end page

  • 110

issue

  • 2

volume

  • 1

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 2938-0642

abstract

  • This paper reviews the complex balance between democratic
    accountability and independence of the European Boards of Bank
    Supervision and of Bank Resolution, within the core of the European
    Banking Union. For that purpose, it first examines the legal bases of such
    attribution of independence to each of these Boards. It also reviews the
    dialectics between independence and democratic accountability in the
    appointment and resignation regime of the members, and in oversight of
    the performance, of the respective Boards. The analysis differentiates
    between both organs because the ECB is not the independent body to
    which the SRM Regulation confers the managing and implementing of
    its provisions, but to an ad hoc body, the SRB, whose direct source of
    creation is the SRM Regulation itself. In this scenario, the balance
    between the independence unfolds in a different legal setting to that of
    the SSM, provided that such independence (like the ECB itself) is a
    direct creation of EU primary law. In addition to this peculiarity, another,
    no less significant, lies in the fact that the funding of the SRF is governed
    by an intergovernmental Treaty between the Member States
    participating in the SRM. Such difference concerning the SSM has
    specific implications for the SRM precisely from the standpoint of the
    European democratic legitimacy, in terms of institutional origin, but also
    of appointment and dismissal of its members, as well as of performance,
    all of which are also dealt with in this paper. Finally, the paper reaches
    the consequent legal conclusions, the main of those being the resulting
    imbalance between democracy and ‘technocracy".

subjects

  • Law

keywords

  • ecb’s council of supervision; single resolution board; independence; democratic accountability; consejo de supervisión del banco central europeo; junta única de supervisión; independencia; rendición de cuentas democráticas; conseil de surveillance de la banque centrale européenne; conseil de surveillance unique; indépendance; responsabilité démocratique