A leading Austrian financial official said that the Eastern European countries that have recently become members of the European Union should be allowed to participate in the regional group's bank supervision plan without having to commit to using the euro currency, Bloomberg reported.

 

Helmut Ettl, co-president of Finanzmarktaufsicht (FMA), Austria's financial watchdog, told a Vienna press conference that the bank supervision program should be an open group. The issue of eastern European banking is particularly relevant to Austria's banks, including its central bank, as they play an oversized financial role in those countries, lending more money than any the institutions of any other country.

 

EU Financial Services Commissioner Michel Barnier also voiced support for the proposal that countries currently not using the euro as their primary currency should be able to adopt the new bank supervision plan, according to Bloomberg.