Barnier offers hope to DB-NYSE tie-up Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext have been given some hope of mustering support to save their merger after Europe's leading financial regulator moved to reserve his right to oppose a recommendation to block the tie-up of the German and US exchange operators. Aides to Michel Barnier, the French commissioner for the internal market, put down a so-called "waiting reserve" at a key European Commission meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, which signals that he may openly challenge the judgment of competition officials. The move sets the stage for a potentially defining debate in the European Commission that will test whether the legal verdict of competition regulators can be overruled by political forces in favour of a merger that will create a "European champion." Joaquín Almunia, the European competition commissioner, has proposed prohibiting the bid to create the world's biggest exchange group by listings unless they are willing to sell one of the groups" main derivatives businesses - a step executives refuse to take. Since Mr Almunia made his views clear, executives from the exchanges have been frantically lobbying to sway opinion on the college of commissioners, which is where the final decision to approve or prohibit the deal will be taken early next month. While several commissioners privately expressed sympathy with the goals of the merger, only Mr Barnier was willing in Tuesday's meeting to leave open the possibility of challenging Mr Almunia to approve the deal. "There was certainly a sharp intake of breath," said one participant. While European officials still say a prohibition is the most likely outcome, Mr Barnier's intervention will give the exchanges some cause for hope. People involved in the deal say winning active support from Angela Merkel may be the deciding factor but so far the German chancellor has been unwilling to weigh-in. The debate in the Commission is significant because it is extremely rare for Brussels to prohibit mergers and even more uncommon for a competition commissioners recommendation to block a deal being overruled. Mr Barnier's aide told the meeting that the commissioner wanted more time to study the recommendation because he had recently been travelling in Asia. Mr Almunia's recommended to disallow the deal because it would create a dominant player in European exchange-traded derivatives markets, stifling competition from potential new entrants, according to two people involved in the process. His decision was almost unanimously backed by a panel of competition experts from EU member states.