underline the needs of local and regional authorities to have a strong banks
stress the importance of local and regional banks for local and regional investment, business and authorities.
The opinion was sent to the European Parliament and the Council of the EU where the negotiations on EDIS are still ongoing.
THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
- takes the view that all Member States should implement the Deposit Guarantee Scheme Directive (DGSD) from 2014 before consideration is given to implementing a European deposit insurance scheme;
- stresses that, thanks to their objectives and local roots, local and regional public banks have retained public trust even during the banking and economic crisis;
- confirms that municipal and regional banks are essentially not profit-driven but act in the general public interest. Like the promotional banks in the Member States, municipal and regional banks also work first and foremost to strengthen local people and businesses. In cooperation with local and regional authorities, they play a major role in building and maintaining basic infrastructure and in financing SMEs, micro-enterprises and start-ups;
- notes that, in many cases, further-reaching national guarantee schemes such as institutional protection schemes may form a useful complement to simple deposit guarantees. A scheme like this that, in an emergency, protects not just people’s assets but the institution as a whole by supporting the participating banks boosts both public confidence and the economy. In addition, such a system could also be used to minimise the impact on the markets due to restructuring;
- specifically points out, in this connection, that the Commission’s proposal must not lead to a situation where contributions to a European deposit insurance fund represent a considerable additional burden on institutes that belong to a functioning institutional protection scheme, calling the existence of these tried and tested institutional protection schemes into question;
- calls first and foremost for remaining risks to be eliminated from banks' balance sheets before a European deposit insurance scheme is established.