(Sept 14): Maria Luis Albuquerque, the European Union’s financial services commissioner, has rejected demands by banks to split in two a grand plan to boost the bloc’s financial system.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, she said Europe was best served by using a single package to deliver reforms that cut red tape, reduce barriers on activities across national borders and ease some regulations.

“If we really want to do something meaningful, we need to look at this as a package because everything is connected,” she said. “We need to address the real issues holding us back, and those are the ones stemming mostly from fragmentation, from the fact that we still have a home host debate.”

Leaders of 11 top banks in the EU, Switzerland and the UK last week called on the EU to prioritise “simplification” reforms in the short term and allow more time to discuss thorny issues like Europe’s deposit insurance scheme.

“This is not for the sake of banks,” she added. “This is for the sake of the EU economy. So our view is that we need to address the problems where we have actually found them, and they don’t stem mostly from the current capital rules. Even if we are also addressing those and making them simpler.”

The US, meanwhile, has been weakening regulation and supervision apace under US President Donald Trump’s administration while the UK has also enacted a series of reforms including reducing the normal level of capital banks must hold.

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