On 17 May 2018, the European Central Bank (ECB) published its opinion (dated 11 May 2018) regarding the European Commission’s draft Regulation amending the Regulation establishing ESMA and the draft Directive amending MiFID II and the Solvency II Directive.

In its general observations the ECB states that it generally supports the proposed Regulation’s objective of contributing to the further development and deepening of the Capital Markets Union (CMU). As proposed by the Commission, single supervision could also be warranted for data service reporting providers as well as administrators of critical benchmarks under a fully-fledged CMU. In its specific observations, the ECB supports the need to revise ESMA’s governance structure.