by Katinka Barysch

Ailing banks are being rescued, markets remain frozen, economic numbers are becoming gloomier. Of course, central banks and governments are focusing on fire-fighting, on cutting interest rates, on providing cash to liquidity-starved banks and to consumers. But slowly they are turning their thoughts to what comes next. How do we make sure that similar crises do not happen again?

EU leaders, at their Brussels summit last week, agreed that the responsibility to clean up the financial mess rested primarily with the banks and mortgage lenders that caused it. But they also promised that European governments were prepared to “take regulatory and supervisory actions where necessary”. Their to-do list is very similar to that of the US government, as laid out by US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulsen on March 14th: regulation that catches up with financial innovation; better ways to identify risky assets and higher capital requirements in case these go sour; and tighter rules for the credit rating agencies that are accused of over-rating packaged debt securities.

Neither the EU nor the US is planning big legislative packages for now. But if another bank or three fails over the next couple of months, the pressure to ‘do something’ would grow. “We are aware of the risk of over-regulation in response to the credit crisis”, said a top US regulator during the Brussels Forum last weekend. “But a response there will be. And we should not be timid.”

With memories of Sarbanes-Oxley still fresh in their minds, Europeans shudder at the thought of the US rushing into new financial markets regulations. Conversely, Americans are worried that cases such as Societe Generale in France, IKB in Germany or Northern Rock in the UK could trigger an over-reaction in some European countries. The risk of unilateral action is probably lower now because the US and the EU have reinforced their communication and co-operation on financial issues in recent years.

This could pay off now in terms of better co-ordination. The challenges of preventing future financial crises are effectively the same in Europe and America. We can look for solutions together. Or we can do so separately and then spend years trying to reconcile them so as not to impede transatlantic capital flows.

Our track record on this is mixed: the EU and the US have long worked together in existing forums, such as the Basel committee on banking supervision. For issues that are not covered there, they set up a financial regulatory dialogue in 2004. But it needed the big political push that came from the establishment of the Transatlantic Economic Council in 2007 for the two sides to make progress on even the most long-standing and vexing issue (namely the reconciliation of accounting standards).

Moreover, transatlantic co-operation can only work if the EU itself has a coherent stance. That does not yet seem to be the case.

In December Italy’s finance minister, Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, argued that the turmoil showed the need for a European rule-book for banking and more powers at the EU level to supervise pan-European banks. He also pointed out the lack of an EU mechanism for handling crises: “Even with signs of a clear risk of contagion”, he wrote in the FT “no common analysis of the situation, no sharing of confidential information, no co-ordinated communication and no emergency meetings appear to have taken place among EU supervisors”. His EU colleagues in Ecofin were not convinced of the need for stronger EU powers, preferring a more evolutionary approach that leaves responsibility firmly with the member-states.

Is that enough? More than 40 banks in Europe now operate across borders. Imagine if Northern Rock had also sold mortgages in say, Belgium, Poland and Spain. Who would have taken the lead in finding a pan-European solution? Could a plethora of EU supervisors persuade the ECB (and the Bank of England) to help with liquidity?

The next Ecofin meeting in April is supposed to come up with new plans for regulatory convergence, stronger supervision and an EU-wide early warning mechanism. That will be difficult enough, given that some Europeans fear that the Commission may use the current market turmoil for a ‘power grab’ in finance. But the Europeans also need to talk to their counterparts in the US to make sure that whatever they decide fits with the response that is emerging on the other side of the Atlantic.

Katinka Barysch is deputy director of the Centre for European Reform.

by Charles Grant

Those who never liked ‘Anglo-Saxon’ capitalism are feeling smug. Marxists, fans of ‘Rhineland’ capitalism and those who simply cannot stand American power are crowing. “The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system,” says Peer Steinbruck, Germany’s finance minister. “Self-regulation is finished, laisser faire is finished, the idea of an all powerful market which is always right is finished,” says France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The British academic (and sometime fan of Margaret Thatcher) John Gray proclaims that “in a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of the government and the economy has collapsed.”

All this hyperbolic froth and windy rhetoric conceals a real danger for the European economy. The perceived failure of one model of capitalism, combined with growing protectionist pressure from all continents, could push EU governments to ban or discourage a whole range of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ practices and institutions. Cross-border takeovers and equity issues, the private equity and hedge fund industries, and even privatisations – all of which can help to make economies more efficient – may come under threat. Furthermore, some governments may think that because the EU’s ‘Lisbon agenda’ of economic reform is British-inspired, they can relax their efforts to carry out its painful but essential prescriptions.

Of course, the credit crisis has exposed huge weaknesses in the American and British financial systems. The so-called phantom banking industry of institutions and instruments that focused on fiendishly complex off-balance sheet financing was poorly regulated. Those in charge of many leading banks appear to have had no idea about the risks they were taking on. Their pay packages were ridiculous and unjustified, especially when those who had failed received tens of millions of dollars of ‘compensation’ for being fired. The property and credit booms in the US, the UK, Spain and Ireland were excessive. And the British decision to allow the building societies (mutuals) to turn themselves into banks – and their subsequent move into risky financial instruments and models of funding – may have been an error.

But politicians such as Steinbruck should not indulge in too much Schadenfreude. For the next few years, some of the core euroland economies may be lucky enough to escape some of the pain that will afflict the Anglo-Saxons. But the continental banks are certainly not immune from the crisis, as the rescue of the Dutch-Belgian Fortis shows. The capital ratios of some of the top continental banks are inferior to those of their American peers. And if a European bank involved in several members-states did head for the rocks, could the EU’s ramshackle regulatory system – with national authorities holding many of the key powers – move as quickly as Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke and the Congress have done?

Many of today’s Cassandras mistakenly assume that financial crises are a uniquely Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. Very different sorts of financial system – such as those of Japan and Sweden in the early 1990s – have ended up being bailed out by governments. Financial crises are inherent in the nature of capitalism, rather than one particular brand of it.

However the current crisis turns out, many continental European governments will have to tackle serious structural flaws in their economies. They are held back by a lack of competition and restrictive practices in a host of sectors, especially services. Their universities cannot compete with the world’s best. In many of these countries, old-fashioned trade unions block reform and modernisation (look at the pitiful saga of Alitalia). Excessive state aid distorts the allocation of capital and may deter new entrants. Over the past 20 years, France, Germany and Italy have performed poorly on economic growth and job creation. Europe as a whole has a poor record on innovation and the adoption of new technologies.

Among the EU-27, the UK has not been the star of the class. In recent years the Nordic economies and the Netherlands have had the best record of combining on the one hand high employment and active labour market policies, and on the other generous welfare and high-quality public services. But the UK has many strengths (as well as notable weaknesses like infrastructure). Its liberal labour markets have helped to push the employment rate above 70 per cent of the workforce – the only other EU countries above 70 per cent are Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. And of the EU’s large economies Britain is the most open to foreign investment, which is one reason why it has a good record of adopting new technologies.

Moreover, the City of London remains a big British strength – despite everything that has happened. Much of what the City does is valuable not only to the UK, but also to Europe and indeed the world economy. If properly regulated, mergers and acquisitions, corporate advice, City law firms, hedge funds, private equity, the euromarkets, the fund managers, the Lloyds insurance market, the currency markets, the international equity markets, and much else, add value. The City is in for a lean few years, but it will come back – after some consolidation and regulatory reform – because the world needs a centre of expertise for international finance.

Nobody should write off the American economy. Compared to its European peers, its history of recovering rapidly from recession is impressive. Its track record on innovation and start-ups is the envy of the world. Where are the European Googles, Microsofts, Ciscos and Intels? The US has most of the world’s best universities. It consistently out-performs the EU on productivity. Despite the rise of the BRIC economies, at market exchange rates the US will remain the world’s leading economy for many decades. China’s leaders know this very well and have not resorted to the kind of hubris that we have heard from certain continental politicians.

Some European leaders may view the Lisbon agenda of economic reform as ‘Anglo-Saxon’, but they should not abandon it. Parts of the agenda are rather Anglo-Saxon, such as the emphasis on creating employment, liberalising utilities and enhancing competition. But much of the agenda has a broader scope: boosting innovation, improving R&D, reforming pensions and helping start-ups. All the European economies need the Lisbon agenda, whether they are Anglo-Saxon, Rhineland, Nordic, East European or Mediterranean. At some point the financial turmoil will settle down. Then EU leaders will need to return to two key questions: why is the trend growth rate of the EU economy about one percentage point less than that of the US, and what can Europe do to catch up?

Charles Grant is director of the Centre for European Reform.

by Philip Whyte

On February 25th, a Commission-appointed taskforce headed by Jacques de Larosière published its much-awaited report on financial supervision in the EU. By coincidence, a parallel (but less widely reported) event took place the same day on the other side of the Channel: Lord Turner, the chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA), gave evidence to a parliamentary committee. What light does Lord Turner’s evidence shed on the UK’s likely reception of the Larosière report?

London’s status as a financial centre has long played an important role in Britain’s complex relationship with the EU. Although the UK has been a strong supporter of the single market, it has been suspicious of any moves that might undermine London’s position as Europe’s pre-eminent financial centre. London’s status has partly rested on the UK’s ‘light touch’ regulatory regime. And many in the UK have long worried that the survival of that regime is threatened by the encroachment of EU rules – particularly as countries such as France and Germany, which aspire to ‘repatriate’ business to Paris and Frankfurt, have never had the City of London’s best interests at heart. This explains why the City, the most cosmopolitan economic cluster anywhere in the EU, is relatively Eurosceptic. And it partly explains successive British governments’ reticence to EU integration.

However, the financial crisis is transforming some longstanding British assumptions. It is not that the crisis has reduced domestic Euro-scepticism. Domestic opposition to joining the single currency remains as strong as ever. But the crisis has called into question the merits of ‘light touch’ regulation. Popular feeling against financiers is running high. A backlash is in full swing. Bankers have fallen even lower in the public’s esteem than politicians, journalists and estate agents. Given the epic scale of the profits which have been privatised and the losses which have been socialised, the opprobrium financiers are attracting is understandable. All the main political parties are going along with the public mood. But it would be wrong to dismiss the recent furore as politicians pandering to the mob. For the change in British assumptions seems to run deeper: it is intellectual, as well as political.

Take Lord Turner’s evidence to the Treasury select committee. What did he say? In essence, he said that the era of light touch regulation was over. He promised a ‘revolution’ in financial regulation that would include tougher capital rules for banks, and capital and liquidity rules for previously large, unregulated institutions such as hedge funds. Asked about the way in which the FSA had supervised a bank which had to be bailed out in 2008 with taxpayers’ money, he said that it “was a competent execution of a philosophy of regulation that was, in retrospect, mistaken”. Lord Turner is no populist, so his testimony represents one of the strongest repudiations of the philosophy of light touch regulation to date. It would be wrong to conclude that the British have converted to the French and German view of financial markets. But the intellectual distance across the Channel has narrowed.

What of the British view on pan-European regulatory structures? The government has opposed periodic calls for the establishment of a pan-European regulator. And there is no reason to believe that the financial crisis has made it anymore keen on the idea. It will continue to oppose any blueprint that smacks of supranationalism. The question is: does the Larosière report propose institutional structures that the UK could accept? It is not yet clear. The Larosière group is not recommending that a single regulator be established. It has recognised that this would be unrealistic, given the absence of political appetite in the UK and some other member-states. So it has proposed building two separate structures: one dealing with traditional micro-prudential supervision (the oversight of individual institutions) and another with macro-prudential issues (risks to the financial system as a whole).

Micro-prudential supervision would build on existing institutional arrangements by establishing a European System of Financial Supervisors. The day-to-day supervision of institutions would be left to national regulators, and international colleges of regulators would continue to oversee cross-border banks. But there would be greater central coordination. The so-called Level 3 committees, which currently try to coordinate national regulatory approaches across the EU, would be given more powers and turned into new authorities for the banking, insurance and securities industries. Macro-prudential supervision would be carried out by a European Systemic Risk Council. This new body would be chaired by the European Central Bank (ECB), but composed of national central banks and regulators. It would collate and analyse information relating to system risk and financial stability.

Could the British government sign up to the institutional architecture proposed by the Larosière report? Although the report does not recommend the establishment of a single, pan-European regulator the British government may still find it difficult to cede new powers to EU bodies. The governing Labour Party is domestically weakened and, with only a year before the next general election, is trailing the opposition Conservative Party by a huge margin in opinion polls. The political context is important because Labour will not want to expose itself to accusations from Eurosceptic Conservatives that it has “given powers away to Brusssels”. The Channel may have narrowed, therefore. But it is far from clear that it has done so sufficiently to allow the Larosière report to be implemented. This is a shame, because there may be no other way to reconcile political constraints with the needs of the moment.

Philip Whyte is a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.