On 13 August 2018, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) published a draft report on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on European Crowdfunding Service Providers for Business. An explanatory statement is provided on page 79 of the document.

The Rapporteur for the proposed Regulation, Ashley Fox, generally welcomes the legislative initiative as part of the efforts to build a Capital Markets Union, but believes that a number of changes are necessary. These are broadly as follows:

• the proposed threshold for crowdfunding offers should be increased from €1m to €8m;
• the experience of Member State national competent authorities on granting authorisation and supervising the crowdfunding platforms should be recognised and their role in the European framework should be enhanced;
• as crowdfunding platforms vary in levels of complexity, rather than rule out more complex structures, more proportionate regulation is required;
• the Regulation should be taken as an opportunity to address and regulate the currently unregulated field of initial coin offerings; and
• third-country providers of crowdfunding services should be allowed to offer their services across the EU: measures need to be in place to ensure they adhere to the same rules as EU passported crowdfunding services providers.