Home country control with consent : a new paradigm for ensuring trust and cooperation in the internal market?

Abstract

Home country control has been a long-standing principle of supervisory governance in the internal market. However, in the wake of the financial crisis the principle has come under stress. This paper looks at ways to deal with home country control by putting forward for discussion a new paradigm which I will coin ‘home country control with consent’ (HCC-C). My aim is to examine the building blocks of HCC-C but also to reflect more generally on the merit of a (mostly horizontal) supervisory arrangement which allows other (host) actors to get involved in the decision-making of a home state authority. To describe such involvement, I will use the term ‘interference’. The basic problematic that I seek to address is that of ensuring cooperation and trust between national competent authorities. To identify the building blocks of HCC-C, I will turn to the recently enacted European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) which provides a possible, even if embryonic, template for HCC-C.