This approach was considered at the October EU summit. There is, however, a practical question regarding the speed with which the ECB can reasonably assume responsibility – and potential reputational risk – for such a large universe of credit institutions, even with a model involving significant delegation of tasks to national authorities. This points to the need to articulate some transitional arrangements.
However, not all would agree with the approaches that the Basel Committee has chosen in particular areas or, perhaps more fundamentally, with the nature of the balance between flexibility and comparability that is incorporated into Basel II. For the moment, let me focus on the latter point, the balance between flexibility and comparability.