On Monday 10 October, the first exchange of views of the committee on economic and monetary affairs (ECON) of the Parliament on the Commission's legislative proposal on reinforcing the supervision of central counterparties (CCP) located outside the EU, giving a central role to the European Securities and Markets authority (ESMA), got off to a positive start (see EUROPE 11807).
“I hope that the Commission won't be shocked to hear so much praise from the European Parliament at the start of a dossier”, said Polish MEP Danuta Maria Hübner (EPP), rapporteur of the Parliament on this dossier. It is, she added, a “good proposal” and the greatest challenge will be to use the various links between the proposed revisions to building more coherence and avoid deadlock.
“Nothing is ever perfect and everything bears improvement”, said Roberto Gualtieri (S&D, Italy), warning against off-the-shelf solutions and calling for progress to be made on this dossier through listening and dialogue.
Czech MEP Petr Ježek (ALDE) also hailed the Commission's “sensible” proposals, but called for clear criteria to be set in place concerning the two-level classification system for third-country CCPs on the basis of the risks they represent.
Kay Swinburne (ECR, UK) - who considers the proposal a step back compared to the success of the clearing system - believes that provisions are needed to regulate mechanisms involving the European Commission, the European Central Bank, national central banks and ESMA.
The connection between this proposal and negotiations underway on the forthcoming withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU did not, of course, escape the MEPs' notice. Referring to the proposal to authorise the Commission, upon request by ESMA, to decide that a third-country CCP must relocate its activities into the EU in order to qualify for the authorisations needed to operate on the single market, the ALDE and ECR groups warned against any move to a degree of “protectionism”. Hearing these calls, the rapporteur called for future rounds of negotiations to protect the global vision of the EU for the financial sector. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)