The European Parliament votes a strengthened version of the text on the capital of banks (Basel III) and limits the remuneration paid to the CEO.

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The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament who must assess the draft directive on the capital bank of banks, on which the different Ministers of Member-States met several times to find an agreement (in last place, on May 2, 2012), had voted the draft European directive on 14 may 2012, by changing it.

Under an institutional statutes, according to the rule of co decision, the text should still be adopted by the Council of Ministers of the States of the European Union before it become a directive, before the last stage, namely the transposition in national law of the Member States of the European Union. On the merits, European parliamentarians have resumed the essential point which is referred to it, namely the resumption in a normative text of the prudential standards of Basel III.

But, because States are not agree on the levels of capital to require following the case (in fact following the interests of their own banking structure), the text amended by the Parliament gives each Member State the possibility of adopting different required capital levels with each other.

The meetings of the Ministers made in Brussels showed that the United Kingdom was favourable to a higher level than the other States. In addition, the text limits the possible amount of the remuneration of the CEO with regard to the bonuses, issue which is more left to self-regulation or the corporate governance. According to the text adopted by Parliament, the bonuses will no longer exceed the fixed part of the remuneration.

There is here a pendulum movement, ordinary for legislation, especially in the media spotlight. Indeed, until recently, the same economic theories advocate the incentives of the executive directors who are not shareholders to behave as such (that is interested in the results) by bonuses and stock options. Today, it is said that stock options encourage us to have risky behaviour and therefore the bonuses are immoral. Economic theory is versatile, and the legislator, by the respect he has for her, it is similarly.