MidnightCall Magazine
In this issue:
- Hear theWord of the Lord — By Thomas Lieth
- FirstThessalonians 3 and the Rapture — By Dr. Ron J. Bigalke Jr.
- Popular Prophecy:CheckingDogmaTwice — By Wilfred Hahn
News From Israel MagazineIn this issue:
- Why Jerusalem is Jewish — By Arno Froese
- ON THE HORIZON:
- Analysis: Birthright Needs to Transform on Larger Scale
- Israel Praises Turkish Authority for Preventing Hezbollah Attack
- Relationship with American Jews Is Changing
- A Festival of Discrimination—Funded by the EU
- The Cyrus Cylinder
Brussels to Step Up Bank Reform
Tough negotiations are looming as the European Commission stepped up the pace for overhauling Europe’s patchy system for supervising banks and insurers in spite of UK wariness about ceding binding authority to non-national bodies.
Top EU officials said they hoped to win broad political support for the reforms, and then bring forward detailed legislation in the “early autumn.” “It will be now or never. If we cannot reform the financial sector and financial supervision when we have a real crisis, when will we reform it?” said Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission president.
As expected, the commission proposals draw heavily on the two-tier approach suggested by Jacques de Larosière, the former French central banker. In particular, the commission is advocating the creation of a European Systemic Risk Council, to assess and warn about threats to financial stability in the region, coupled with a “European System of Financial Supervisors,” which will oversee individual banks and financial firms.
Day-to-day supervision of companies would remain with national supervisors. But the commission proposes to upgrade three pan-EU coordinating committees into new European Supervisory Authorities for the banking, insurance and securities sectors respectively.
These would develop harmonized rules and common approaches to supervision. But they also would have the power to settle potential disputes between national supervisors and be able “to adopt decisions directly applicable to financial institutions” in urgent situations or if national supervisors were stalling.
The new organizations could also be given responsibility for supervising “certain entities with pan-European reach [such as] credit rating agencies and EU central counterparty clearing houses.”
Financial Times, 28 May 2009, pg. 6
More regulations are as natural as breathing air. But to establish and enforce such regulation is going to be most difficult. Nevertheless, in order to function as the power center of the world, the European Union will not only write and enforce laws for its members, but also for the rest of the world
When trying to understand this development from prophetic perspectives, we must keep in mind that there is only one power structure for the Gentile world, and that is Rome (Europe). Note the words, “the whole earth” in Daniel 7:23: “Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces.”