What we are looking for from the new European Union mandate is a reinvigoration of the move towards a single market for financial services.
A lot of the necessary changes that have come on the regulatory side have rolled back the single market rather than enhanced it.
Banking union is also still a work in progress in part due to changes in the rules about capitalisation - this is being done on a national basis which is, of course, a step away from Europe-wide solutions.
The European Commission is most important to us as it initiates policy. The internal markets and services commissioner Michel Barnier has done very well managing the after-affects of the crisis, but looking ahead we would like to see a commissioner with more of a focus on promoting growth through open markets.
We will be taking a close interest in the composition of the European Parliament, especially the expected influx of MEPs who are there effectively to disrupt decision-making. Things are already quite difficult in the parliament for the UK as the Tories are sitting outside the mainstream conservative EPP bloc, which limits their influence when it comes to appointing rapporteurs, committee chairs and so on. That has been a problem. Our organisation has no choice to work with the government of the day, and if the main party of government has chosen to exclude itself in this way, that's pretty unhelpful.
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It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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