The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its response to the European Commission’s consultation on the operation of the European Supervisory Authorities.
ESMA has made a number of recommendations related to its functioning and powers. The main areas covered by the recommendations are:
- international aspects of EU financial markets;
- direct supervision;
- supervisory convergence; and
- access to data and reporting.
In relation to international aspects of EU financial markets ESMA states:
“ESMA stands ready to play a key role in third country issues, as it has the technical expertise to provide support to the legislative and policy processes. ESMA should be the central point for technical third country related issues, including (more regular) equivalence assessments, and on-going monitoring of regulatory and supervisory developments in the third country.
The current third country regimes generally rely, under certain conditions, on third country regulators. To better respond to risks that third country entities present to EU financial markets, and to ensure consistent supervision, certain third country entities should be subject to regular supervision and enforcement regimes. To ensure a common approach to third country entities active across the EU financial markets, the supervisory and enforcement powers should be conducted at EU level by ESMA for third country entities such as: Credit Rating Agencies, Trade Repositories, Central Counterparties and benchmarks. In the absence of uniform third country regimes for trading venues in the EU, and considering how Brexit may affect the third country approach for data providers, it could also be considered to have a similar role for ESMA regarding these third country entities. Subsequent to this letter, ESMA intends to submit to the Commission an opinion with its more detailed views on improvements for EU third country regimes for financial markets.”
View ESMA publishes response to consultation on the operation of the ESAs, 30 May 2017
