The EU and financial regulation: power without purpose?

Banking on Stability: The Political Economy of New Capital Requirements in the European Union

“…Hence, the implementation of Basel III into EU legislation will be consequential not only for its large internal market and the 6000 European banks therein, but also for the stability of the international financial system. Third jurisdictions, first and foremost the US, which is the main counterpart of the EU in international financial fora (Posner 2009;Posner and Véron 2010), are also concerned about potential regulatory arbitrage and competitive advantages accruing to European banks as a result of the 'distinctive' implementation of Basel rules in the EU.…”

Europe and the management of globalization

“…Thus, rather than favoring a particular model of EU decision-making, we treat the EU as something of a 'black box' insofar as the pressures and processes that result in particular decisions are a matter for each author to treat as a consequence of his or her own analytical choices. This means that individual contributions emphasize the source of novel policies in several ways: through intergovernmental bargaining in the Council of Ministers (Jabko 2010;Posner and Véron 2010), through corporate and/or civil society actors (Jacoby 2010;Kelemen 2010), through public opinion (Burgoon 2010), and through Commission entrepreneurialism (Abdelal and Meunier 2010;Fioretos 2010;Sbragia 2010) as the ultimate source of policy demand.…”

A Wall Around Europe? The European Regulatory Response to the Global Financial Crisis and the Turn in Transatlantic Relations

“…First, some authors highlighted how in the years before the crisis Europe frequently overcame the impasse between different national models of regulation by borrowing 'best practices' developed within international regulatory bodies as the model for new EU directives and regulations, such in the case of the capital requirements negotiated by the Basel Committee or the accounting standards set by the International Accounting Standards Board, (Posner and Véron 2010). Indeed, the crisis has intensified the interaction between European and US regulatory authorities in devising a common approach to the regulation of derivatives, rating agencies, and hedge funds, both through existing international regulatory bodies such as IOSCO and Financial Stability Forum, and newly created bodies such as the OTC Derivatives Regulators' Forum.…”

“…According to Posner and Véron (2010), instead of offering an alternative framework, European policymakers prioritised the goal of achieving, internally, full market integration in the financial services and, externally, the goal of securing more favourable terms of cross-border access to US markets for Europe-based firms. For these authors, the European power remained in this period "power without purpose".…”