BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Central Bank would consider a bigger role in supervising euro zone commercial banks, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Wednesday. The central bank for the 15-nation currency area was the first to inject liquidity into money markets last August when a crisis in the U.S. home loans market escalated.

The move won plaudits for the ECB and fuelled a debate in Europe on how supervision of financial markets should be reformed to reflect the emergence of many big cross-border banks while supervision remains largely nationally based.
Trichet was addressing the European Parliament’s economic affairs committee where several members urged the ECB to play a more prominent role in banking supervision. Currently the ECB is limited to monitoring the overall stability of the market and intervening in money markets to support its monetary policy.
“At some point someone has to take the lead and shake things up a bit,” said the committee’s chairwoman, French socialist Pervenche Beres. Trichet acknowledged growing debate on the issue.
“We would certainly have to look at it very very carefully in the Governing Council. I can’t say we have a position on it in the Governing Council but I observe what has been proposed with great care,” Trichet said. Trichet said the ECB was “very, very keen” on encouraging supervision authorities in Europe to work more closely.
“We are pushing for a maximum amount of intimate cooperation and exchange of information in the EU and inside the euro area,” Trichet said.
EU finance ministers meet in Nice in France on Friday and Saturday to discuss measures to set out how supervisors from each country a bank operates in could work more closely to anticipate problems. 
“We are pushing for a maximum amount of intimate cooperation and exchange of information in the EU and inside the euro area,” Trichet said.
EU finance ministers meet in Nice in France on Friday and Saturday to discuss measures to set out how supervisors from each country a bank operates in could work more closely to anticipate problems.