The EBA's Relationship with Member States in the Banking Union Framework: Supportive or Disruptive?

Abstract

The establishment of the Banking Union (BU) and of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) have pressured the EBA into an ‘existential search’ (Ferran 2016, 286) as to the value of its policy output on the side of supervision. At the same time, these developments have accentuated the ambiguities in the EBA’s internal and external setting. The first relates to the anchoring of the EBA’s executive level to national competent authorities (NCAs) and their capacity to disproportionately influence internal decision-making processes, while the second cautions about the capacity of the ECB to influence SSM-participating countries at the EBA negotiating table. In this context, arguably, the accomplishment of the EBA’s ‘existential search’ depends on its relationship with member states, with the core contention being: do member states support or disrupt the EBA's policymaking on the side of supervision? With this in mind and focusing on the internal dimension of the EBA’s relationship with member states in the BU framework, this paper first departs from Art. 16 of the EBA Regulation examining how NCAs inform the development of guidelines related to the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) – the backbone of the common supervisory culture. It then reflects on Art. 17 of the same regulation that spells out the authority’s supervisory enforcement powers, by analysing the course of action of national authorities in connection to the alleged breach of EU law proceedings in the Danske Bank case. The paper argues that the EBA’s relationship with member states appears supportive on the side of supervisory convergence, whilst the enforcement side reveals an adversarial dimension.