regulatory and legislative updates

On 21 October 2025, the European Commission (Commission) published a communication regarding its work programme for 2026.

The communication discusses the Commission’s main plans and priorities for 2026 and is accompanied by an Annex listing new initiatives and their expected timing, as well as initiatives the Commission intends to withdraw.

The communication

On 30 September 2025, the European Commission (Commission) published a Recommendation targeted at Member States on increasing the availability of savings and investment accounts (SIAs) with simplified and advantageous tax treatment (the Recommendation).

A key component of the SIU

The Recommendation outlines a strategy to encourage Member States to

On 30 September 2025, the European Commission (Commission) published a Financial Literacy Strategy Communication (the Strategy). The Strategy is one of several initiatives that form the Savings and Investments Union (SIU), which seeks to further integrate the EU’s capital markets and channel more savings towards investments thereby funding the

On 10 September 2025, the European Parliament issued a press release stating that it had adopted the text of a resolution that follows up on the Draghi report and seeks to maintain pressure towards reaching the objectives of that report. Among other things the text warns that if no further actions are taken, Europe will

The European Commission (Commission) has published its work programme for 2025. The work programme consists of a communication discussing the Commission’s main plans and priorities and is accompanied by an Annex listing new initiatives and their expected timings, as well as initiatives the Commission intends to withdraw.

The communication emphasises that the

On 31 January 2025, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) published its 2026-2028 Programming Document.

In the foreword of the Programming Document ESMA’s Executive Director, Natasha Cazenave, notes that the years 2026-2028 will be a period of transformation for ESMA, as several new supervisory  mandates will be added to ESMA’s remit

The European Commission (Commission) has published its Competitiveness Compass (Compass). The Compass is a policy document that describes the overall Commission policy on increasing the EU’s competitiveness over the coming five-year term. The Compass comes as a response to the reports published by Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi, which both warned

Introduction

Following a process that took nearly six months and started with the June 2024 European Parliament elections, the new European Commission (Commission) started its five-year term on 1 December 2024. The EU institutions have spent the previous month selecting, vetting, hearing, and voting on the new College of Commissioners, which consists of

On Tuesday 17 September, Commission Present-elect Ursula von der Leyen published her long-awaited list of European Commissioner-designates and the allocation of their portfolios. The presentation of the Commissioner-designates and their responsibilities is a key step in the transition to the 2024-2029 legislative term. The process for selecting candidate Commissioners has been complex so far, as

The European Parliament elections took place between 6 and 9 June 2024. While the results are still coming in, the provisional data indicates that even though the traditional parties have retained their majority in the hemicycle, the more radical groupings on the right have gained more ground. This is in line with opinion polling carried