On Tuesday 16 April, the European Parliament as a whole approved by a large majority the interinstitutional agreement reached at the end of March (see EUROPE 12219/6) on the reform of the European financial supervision architecture (see EUROPE 11864/1).
They approved the main proposal amending the founding regulations of the three European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) by 521 votes to 70 with 65 abstentions. The proposals amending the MiFIR Regulation, the MiFID Directive and the Solvency II Directive as well as the proposal on the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) received 519 votes and 523 votes respectively.
The dossier "was not going very well; some even considered it dead; some of the Member States were delighted with it and we saved it", said Pervenche Berès (S&D, France), co-rapporteur, returning to the difficult negotiations that had taken place with the Council of the EU.
The strengthening of consumer protection, the consideration of climate risk and the new mandate to combat money laundering given to the European Banking Authority (EBA) were in turn cited as good progress by MEPs in the debate preceding the vote.
The co-rapporteurs, Pervenche Berès and Othmar Karas (EPP, Austria), nevertheless expressed their frustration that they had not been able to go further and that they had come up against the "Council wall".
"The heart of the battle, of course, was the question of governance; on this point we have made useful refinements to decision-making so that it is better informed, particularly in the event of potential conflicts of interest", said Ms Berès, regretting that it had not been possible to be more ambitious (see EUROPE 12213/23). See the final text: https://bit.ly/2KEaOV4. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)