site.btaDaniele Nouy: Bulgaria Has Not Made Formal Bid to Join Single Supervisory Mechanism for European Banks

Daniele Nouy: Bulgaria Has Not Made Formal Bid to Join Single Supervisory Mechanism
for European Banks

Brussels, November 4 (BTA) - The leader of the oversight arm of
the European Central Bank (ECB), Daniele Nouy, said on Tuesday
that no formal notification has been received from Bulgaria
about the country's willingness to join the Single Supervisory
Mechanism (SSM) for the European banking sector. Nouy was
speaking before the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in
the European Parliament. The hearing was attended by Bulgarian
MEP Eva Paunova (EPP/CD), the GERB party in Sofia reported in a
press release.

The hearing comes a day before ECB is expected to establish
direct supervision over the largest financial institutions in
the euro-area countries. The discussion focused on the findings
of a financial review on Europe's largest banks.

Paunova told the meeting that by July Bulgaria's political
leaders and experts had achieved broad consensus that the
country should start a procedure to join SSM. On July 15 the
Bulgarian National Bank said it had contacted the ECB Executive
Board about the matter, but then there was silence about the
further steps towards that goal, Paunova recalled.

Responding to Paunova's remarks, Nouy said that ECB is closely
watching the events in Bulgaria and underlined the procedural
steps which the country needs to take in order to join SSM. The
first step is to send a formal notification at least five months
before the desired accession date, the French chief supervisor
of euro-area banks said. ECB has not received any such
notification, but it is ready to cooperate with the colleagues
in Bulgaria if necessary, Nouy said. Any talks so far have been
only informal, she added, as quoted by GERB's press office.