Il caso delle banche venete: le contraddittorie opzioni delle autorità europee e la problematica applicazione degli aiuti di stato

After the financial crisis, the European regulation introduces a top-level architecture of the financial system characterized by multiple authorities granted – after the establishment of the European Banking Union – with tasks of banking supervision and crisis management of credit institutions. The ECB and the Single Resolution Board identify the authorities entitled to the supervision of banks and to the definition of the applicable measures in events of crisis. We have a detailed regulatory framework which takes into account the possibility of overlapping between the supervisory function and that relating to the resolution of crises. The attempt of the European regulator to achieve a better coordination, aimed at reducing the discretion granted to national governments prior to the issuance of the BRRD, is contradictory. Such profiles emerged during the real application in cases of banking illnesses that occurred in Europe in the period following the transposition of the above-mentioned directive. With reference to the recent events of crisis of Veneto banks, the assumption of the above measures has highlighted, according to well-known foreign politicians, risks of lack of systematic coherence. Within the framework of a complex decision- making process, which focuses on institutional authorities in charge of different functions (and aimed at realizing different purposes), the EU Commission, arbitrator of competition law, plays an essential role in the field of bank crisis management. In this context, the powers of the ECB and of the SRB (as well as those of the Bank of Italy) intersect (and sometimes conflict, in an unclear and not pre-established order of priority) with those of the Commission in antitrust matters. If it is up to the ECB and the SRB to decide whether a bank should be settled or liqui-dated, only the Commission, "when public funds are being reimbursed", can deter-mine the resolution and, if the resolution is not resolved, the liquidation procedure.