Brussels, 30/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - The sixth round of inter-institutional talks, held on Wednesday 28 October, on the draft EU regulation to enhance governance in the formation of benchmarks led to a further rapprochement of the negotiating positions of the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on the question of categorisation and proportionality.
A threshold of €50 billion has in principle (subject to the agreement of the member states) been agreed upon to identify significant benchmarks. This is will below the European Parliament's initial proposals. The parties also agreed on certain requirements being withdrawn for significant benchmarks, namely the duty to use the services of an external auditor to assess the accuracy of the administrator's compliance statement.
The EP, however, does not agree on six special measures for significant benchmarks being lifted on the national administrator's discretion. The EP is said to want to deal with the issue from the other direction, in other words for measures to only apply when the national administrator decides that they should. The EP expressed concern about the regulation applying inadvertently to small commodities benchmarks. The parties therefore decided on a €100 million 'de minimis' exemption for commodities benchmarks. The other commodities benchmarks commodities will be dealt with based on the PRA IOSCO guidelines (International Organisation of Securities Commissions). The question of the regime for non-EU countries was not addressed.
The next trialogue talks will be held on 24 November. (Original in French by Elodie Lamer)