ECB Officials Lobby for Rival Bank Rule Plans Before Report

Several top European central bankers made competing proposals on how to reduce the regulatory burden on lenders as they seek to influence the discussion just weeks before finalizing a report that will set the stage for decisions at the European Union level.

In speeches on Tuesday, the central bank governors of France and Spain, Francois Villeroy de Galhau and Jose Luis Escriva, each floated differing recommendations on how to simplify various capital buffers. Their interventions followed comments from Bundesbank supervision head Michael Theurer in an interview with Bloomberg last week that were designed to salvage the institution’s controversial proposal for bank capital.