Bloomberg: Banker bonuses at risk as EU lawmakers fight Barnier plans

29 August 2012

European Union lawmakers said they will fight proposals from EU Financial Services Commissioner Michel Barnier that would water down legislation capping banker bonuses.

European Parliament members have until the end of the week to respond to Barnier’s compromises, which would weaken a ban they approved in May on bonuses larger than bankers' (SX7P) fixed pay, Sharon Bowles, chairwoman of the assembly’s economic and monetary affairs committee, said in an interview. “I’m not expecting there has been a big change of views” on the need for the curbs, Bowles said.

Philippe Lamberts, the lawmaker leading the work on the measures for the parliament’s Green group, said in an August 27 interview that he would be “amazed” if the assembly backed down.

As an alternative to Parliament’s plan for a bonus cap, Barnier said in June that shareholders should have to vote on the ratio between fixed and variable pay. “The commission thinks that making shareholders responsible for remuneration is a way forward in the current negotiations,” Stefaan De Rynck, Barnier’s spokesman, said in an e-mail today. Barnier “is personally not against a cap but has proposed empowering shareholders in a spirit of compromise”, De Rynck said. “We now need to decide rapidly on the outstanding questions” in the draft law.

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