Since 2002, the Financial Markets Regulatory Dialogue (FMRD) has acted as a forum between the European Union and the United States to inform each other of regulatory issues of interest and concern. The FMRD has now been renamed the Joint EU – US Financial Regulatory Forum (Forum). The Forum will represent the views of the European Commission and the US Treasury, incorporating input from other participants.

The Forum is to be used as a platform for enabling regulatory cooperation as early as practicable in EU and US regulatory law-making and rule-making processes, with the general operational objective to improve transparency, reduce uncertainty, identify potential cross-border implementation issues, work towards avoiding regulatory arbitrage and towards compatibility, as appropriate, of each other’s standards, and, when relevant, promote domestic implementation consistent with international standards.

Valdis Dombrovskis (Vice President for the Euro and Social Dialogue and Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union) and Jacob Lew (US Secretary of the Treasury) have exchanged letters outlining the new arrangements for the Forum. In particular the Forum will meet as early and often as possible.

View Upgrade of EU – US financial regulatory cooperation, 18 July 2016