France, Italy and Spain Propose Voluntary Cross-Border Banking Regime to Ease Rules and Cut Costs

France, Italy and Spain have jointly proposed new rules aimed at easing cross-border banking operations and cutting red tape across the bloc. The three countries submitted their proposals as an input to the European Commission. A document containing the joint proposals was seen by Euronews.

The European Commission is expected to publish a report on the competitiveness of the banking sector on 15 July. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has made competitiveness a central plank of the EU's agenda. As part of that push, the Commission is planning a reform of the European banking sector, with a legislative proposal expected in 2027.

Europe's banking market remains structurally fragmented along national boundaries, the document states, arguing that this limits the sector's ability to better serve businesses and households. The three countries cite a European Central Bank estimate that the absence of cross-border liquidity waivers constrains the transferability of around €230 billion of high-quality liquid assets within the Banking Union.

This weakens competitiveness, raises compliance costs, limits access to products and services, and undermines the scale and efficiency gains that European banks need to support strategic EU priorities, the document argues.

To address the problem, the document proposes the creation of a new voluntary, ad-hoc regime for EU banking groups with significant cross-border activities. This new voluntary, ad-hoc regime for EU banking groups would complement the simplification proposals aimed at ensuring better regulatory consistency and reducing regulatory burden and compliance costs, in particular by improving predictability and usability of capital and liquidity buffers, the document states.

Luca Bertuzzi contributed reporting.