Business World

One of the Central Bank of Ireland’s most senior officials has been rejected for a top role in the European Union’s banking regulator over his links to financial lobbyists. The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs voted against Gerry Cross in his bid to become executive director of the European Banking Authority.

«The candidate worked in the past lobbying (for) the financial sectory,» parliamentarian Jonas Fernandez said in a video posted on Twitter.

Mr Cross was appointed Director of Financial Regulation — Policy and Risk at the Central Bank of Ireland in May 2015.

In his role, he leads the Central Bank’s work on prudential and markets conduct regulatory policy and its supervisory risk framework.

Prior to that he worked for the Association for Financial Markets in Europe, a powerful industry lobby group.

The European Parliament rejection was first reported by Bloomberg.

Mr Fernandez, a Social Democrat said that parliament had passed a law that prevented so-called «revolving door» appointments where those who worked for an industry could move into public positions regulating their former employers.

«Now it is completely impossible for us to do this,» he said in reference to approving Mr Cross.

 Ireland has a mixed record in getting officials into top European jobs.

While Phil Hogan is now the powerful Trade Commissioner and Philip Lane is Chief Economist at the European Central Bank, Sharon Donnery, the deputy head of the Central Bank of Ireland, failed to land a job as chief of the Single Supervisory Mechanism.

The Central Bank of Ireland did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether, in the light of his lobbying links, Mr Cross should hold a top financial regulatory job here.