The ECB: a prudential supervisor without sufficient powers?

Council Regulation No 1024/2013 (‘SSM Regulation’ or ‘SSMR’) confers exclusive competence on the ECB to carry out specific supervisory tasks with regard to credit institutions established in the Euro Area Member States. When the ECB carries out its supervisory tasks, it is “considered, as appropriate, the competent authority or the designated authority in the participating Member States as established by the relevant Union law”. Any reference made in the CRD IV to a National competent authority (NCA) shall thus be read as a reference to the ECB whenever the ECB is competent. However, this does not turn the ECB into a super NCA. Although the SSMR has granted the ECB most of the powers necessary to carry out its new tasks, the ECB lacks certain specific powers that national laws have given to national supervisors. Filling this gap and ensuring a high level of consistency in the exercise of prudential supervision require the definition of complex administrative composite procedures where the identification of responsibility and accountability of the ECB and the NCAs is particularly blurred. Ten years after the creation of the SSM, it will be time to consider a number of developments in the legal framework, as this contribution will discuss in conclusion.