EU GOVERNMENTS are pushing MEPs to postpone a key vote on a new pan-European system of financial regulation, a development that reflects the increasing powers of the European Parliament.

The council of EU finance ministers and MEPs are trying to reconcile their respective plans to reinforce Europe’s patchy system of financial regulation ahead of a vote in parliament on Wednesday.

Amid serious divisions over the reach of new pan-European regulators, the two sides will hold talks tonight in a last-minute attempt to forge a compromise.

The governments will be represented by Belgium, which took command of the EU’s six-month rotating presidency last week.

Even in advance of the talks, European governments have been pushing to have the vote postponed to allow more time to reach a deal. Senior parliamentary sources insist, however, that the vote will proceed as planned even if there is no agreement.

This means the legislation would go to a second reading in the parliament, delaying the enactment process and raising prospects that the new European supervisory authorities charged with preventing any repeat of the financial crisis would not come into force as planned in January.

Diplomats say the governments would prefer the legislation to go through on its first reading in the parliament as that would be quicker and more straightforward.

The dispute is one of three significant issues for resolution at the parliament’s monthly plenary session in Strasbourg this week. The other two revisit questions on which MEPs, whose powers increased radically under the Lisbon reform treaty, have flexed their muscles in recent months.

Members will vote on the new European diplomatic corps, a plan they initially dismissed as inadequate.

They are also to vote on a new bank data transfer deal, after voting down an old agreement to transfer European bank account data to US intelligence agents on privacy grounds.

The long-running process of establishing a European External Action Service (EAS) will draw a step closer on Thursday with a vote on how the diplomatic corps will organise its work.

Although MEPs have no power per se over the nascent EAS, they must approve its operating structure and have used their right to endorse its staffing and financial systems as a bargaining tool in talks with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.

After months of fruitless talks, Baroness Ashton reached agreement a fortnight ago with leading MEPs from the centre-right, socialist and liberal groups on the new body. MEPs claimed several concessions, particularly on the right to oversee parts of the EAS’s quasi-autonomous budget.

They also claimed concessions on political oversight, with EU commissioners and the foreign minister of the country that holds the EU’s rotating presidency empowered to speak on Baroness Ashton’s behalf in the parliament.

Despite some disagreement about the timing of the vote within the dominant European Peoples’ Party faction in the parliament, senior political sources expect the vote to pass without a hitch.

Only then will Baroness Ashton be able to start filling top-level jobs in the EAS. While she wants the new body to start its work by the first anniversary of the Lisbon Treaty’s enactment on December 1st, that cannot be done until the parliament approves its financial and staffing regulations.

The vote on the transfer of European bank account data to the US follows a renegotiation of the pact between the European and American authorities. The new deal would allow a European civil servant to oversee US scrutiny of the data in Washington. Sources in parliament said a vote in favour of the new system was likely.