The Integration Agenda to Come
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The Integration Agenda to Come

MARIO NAVA (BOCCONI ALUMNUS WORKING AT THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION) INDICATES THE NEXT NECESSARY STEPS


Financial regulation and banking supervision at the European Commission is also the job of a Bocconi alumnus, Mario Nava (class of 1989 graduate in Economics). After twenty-three years of work in the Brussels-based institution, Nava is now responsible for overseeing the financial system and the management of financial crises.

➜ How did your career develop at the Commission?
I applied for concours in 1994; there were something like 30,000 candidates for 150 job positions. I first started in the Directorate-General for Taxation, dealing with fiscal policy structure, then I moved to the Budget Directorate working on budgetary forecasts and the development of European public finances. In year 2000, I entered the cabinet of Mario Monti, then EU Commissioner for Competition, and  then in 2001 I joined the board of economic and political advisors to Romano Prodi, then president of the European Commission. There I was one of the rapporteurs of the Sapir Report. In those ten years I learned a lot. Since 1 May 2004, the day of the largest territorial enlargement in the history of EU, I have worked at the Directorate-General for the Internal Market, first dealing with financial markets and, then, in 2013, I became Director of Banking Regulation and Superivions, and now Financial System Surveillance and Crisis Management.

➜ What does your position entail?
In summary, the direction I am responsible for has the task for monitoring the health of the financial system in the eurozone, both in macro-financial terms (by country) and in micro-financial terms (looking at individual credit institutions), including verification of the implementation of EU rules on ailing banks. It is one of the four directorates of the Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, which reports to Commission’s Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis.

➜ How is the European ideal felt within the Commission today?
It is an ideal that has undergone ups and downs recently. 2016 was a very complicated year; in 2017, things have improved and, as Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker pointed out in his September speech on the State of the Union, now "the wind is back Europe’s sails". On the other hand, working within the European institutions and in the Commission in particular means developing the capacity to listen to the needs of so many stakeholders involved, to focus the different opinions and needs in a synthesis policy and to have the flexibility and resilience to approve and implement them.

➜ How is financial integration proceeding in the EU, in your opinion?
I think in this area we have been able to draw the right lessons from the huge drama, both in financial and human terms, which was the crisis. In a sense, we have not let it go to waste because we have created conditions that greatly reduce both the likelihood that another crisis of that magnitude will hit again and the damage that is likely to cause. Governments and the European Parliament immediately realized that there was a stark choice to be made: either stronger integration to defend the economic benefits of the Single Market – a formidable tool for growth and employment – or the disintegration of the Union itself. The determination of all actors in proceeding toward the Banking Union has restored confidence and stability in financial markets, so that they can return to foster growth in the real economy.

➜ And in the near future?
With regard to the future of financial integration, I believe that it is urgent to complete the Banking Union and endow it with a single deposit insurance scheme, and a backstop guarantee for the resolution fund. I would like to emphasize that the Banking Union is open to all European countries, not just the countries of the euro area. In addition, it is urgent to complete the Capital Markets Union to give firms and the real economy realistic investment alternatives and competitive sources of funding.

Read more about this topic
Guido Tabellini. Searching for the Idea of Europe
Francesco Daveri. What Could Hamper the Recovery and the Return of Confidence
Paola Profeta. Tax Rates Are Not Political Party Members
Tommaso Monacelli. And if a Monetary Union Is Better?
Elena Carletti. Public Debt: Lessons from Greece
Oreste Pollicino. The Judges and the European Web
Paolo R. Graziano. Failures of the EU Neet Plan
Leonardo Borlini. Terrorism and Conflicting Laws
 

by Andrea Celauro
Translated by Alex Foti


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