Parliament confirms EU banking nominee despite gender concerns

Lawmakers overturn committee and back François-Louis Michaud for European Banking Authority post.

EU lawmakers backed François-Louis Michaud’s nomination to the European Banking Authority in a setback for members campaigning to put a woman in the executive director post.

The European Parliament voted 343-296 in favor of the Frenchman, with 56 abstentions, overturning his narrow rejection in the economics committee, where members had voiced concerns about gender equality in top financial roles.

Michaud, a European Central Bank supervisor who oversees the EU’s largest lenders, had sought to ease the committee’s worries by pledging to promote women at the EBA.

The approval of Michaud to the EBA’s second-highest post still leaves relations frayed between the regulator and Parliament.

MEPs blocked the nomination of the EBA board’s first nominee, Irish regulator Gerry Cross, in January due to similar fears over gender balance, as well as a revolving door with the financial industry.

Legislators on the economics panel complained that the EBA ignored their requests for a gender-balanced shortlist and a preference from party leaders for female candidate Isabel Vaillant, the agency’s director of prudential regulation and supervisory policy.

Stéphanie Yon-Courtin, a French MEP for the liberal Renew Europe Group, said before the vote that there should be a new procedure to select top regulators.

“Approving or rejecting one single candidate selected by the Board, and being forced to delay the procedure if the candidate does not fit: this is not democratic scrutiny, this is just putting a pistol to Parliament’s head,” she said in an email.

The European Commission should come up with a targeted reform of the nomination and confirmation procedure, Yon-Courtin said.

An EBA spokesperson said: “We welcome the decision of the European Parliament and look forward to François-Louis Michaud joining the EBA soon as our new Executive Director.”