Abstract
Through a brief overview of crisis-driven reforms of Economic and Monetary Union governance, the rationale and progress of agencification therein and an outline of agencies’ basic functions, this chapter details the motivation for studying agencies in European banking and their mode of governance. The chapter introduces the book’s main research question, objectives and methodology design. Bridging a precise lacuna in relevant scholarship, this short volume engages in a systematic, exploratory research of European agencies with competencies in prudential policy-making in order to shed light on the relationship dynamics of National Competent Authorities (NCAs) as part of these regulatory networks. By zooming in on NCAs’ interplay the book determines key drivers of agency governance, offering new knowledge on the actual practices of banking regulation and prudential policy-making.
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Notes
- 1.
Ruffing (2015, p. 1114) points out that expertise, understood as knowledge about the “technical feasibility of certain policy options”, is a highly treasured resource in EU policymaking.
- 2.
Although there is no single definition of functional equality found in the literature, one can determine its meaning by first looking at a somewhat related term, “equivalence”, which is strongly rooted in EU jargon, and describes “the foundational degree of similarity that is needed for concessionary access arrangements to function” (Ferran and Chan Ho 2014, p. 417). In a similar manner, functional equality, or “functional equivalence” as Ferran calls it (2017), can broadly be described as the creation and maintenance of a “level playing field” between different subsets of countries in the EU within various modes of governance in the financial market, through carefully designed decision-making mechanisms that provide each subset of countries with similar opportunities to shape policy outputs.
- 3.
Moreover, Font (2015, p. 788) finds that intergovernmental dynamics are particularly enhanced in agencies established after the 2004 wave of EU enlargement.
- 4.
Bach and Ruffing further reinforce this argument by noting that: “several agencies now exist in economic regulation (…) and national agencies usually retain powerful functions within those agencies, for example, as members of agency boards” (Bach and Ruffing 2016, p. 4).
- 5.
It is important to state that once they are members of a European agency, NCAs are legally forbidden to receive “any kind of ministerial instructions” (Ruffing 2015, p. 1118), and therefore “national interests” should not be understood in the narrow sense but rather in the sense of MS’ policy preferences. For a detailed explanation of the motivations and broader background of national policy preferences see Chap. 2, Sect. 2.4.
- 6.
Admittedly, Font (2015, p. 788) notes that MS influence progressively diminishes as agencies increase the complexity of their bureaucratic structure and policy outputs. However, Egeberg and Trondal (2016, p. 6) rightly point out that the argument holds only when national interests are represented by government ministries within agencies’ executive organs. When national interests are advocated by national agencies, such as NCAs, the level of MS influence on decision -making processes is still high (Egeberg and Trondal 2016, p. 7).
- 7.
“Variable geometry” describes a “method of differentiated integration which acknowledges that there are irreconcilable differences within the integration structure and therefore allows for a permanent separation between a group of Member states and a number of less developed integration units” (HM Government 2014, p. 109).
- 8.
In the words of Jordana and Triviño-Salazar (2017, p. 5), the term “agencification” describes the “formalization of stable organizations with specific responsibilities and mandates”.
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Božina Beroš, M. (2018). Introduction. In: Agencies in European Banking. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Banking and Financial Institutions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78689-6_1
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