An agreement between the European Parliament and the EU Council on the proposal for a regulation to facilitate crowdfunding could be reached at the next negotiating meeting, scheduled for 11 December, a European source told EUROPE. During the first ‘trilogue’, the co-legislators had already stated their common desire to reach agreement on the text by the end of the year (see EUROPE 12355/15).
However, the third negotiation meeting, held on Monday 25 November in Strasbourg, failed to make any major progress, according to the same source. However, there are reportedly not many points of divergence between the EU Council and the European Parliament.
At the second ‘trilogue’ on 6 November last, the European Parliament reportedly accepted – in principle and subject to other considerations – the minimum harmonisation approach proposed by the EU Council (see EUROPE 12282/16), instead of creating a 29th regime allowing crowdfounding platforms that so request to provide their services throughout Europe.
Another point of divergence concerned the level of involvement of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Parliament would have called for ESMA’s powers to be strengthened, in particular by giving it a role as a mediator in any disagreements between different competent authorities in the event of granting or refusing authorisation. In its text, the EU Council only entrusted ESMA with the task of establishing a register of service providers authorised to operate throughout the EU.
No solution on this point could be found on 6 November. Nevertheless, at the ‘trilogue’ on 25 November, the EU Council finally showed that it was open to assigning an increased role to ESMA in the context of technical regulatory standards in order to satisfy Parliament.
The question of the threshold to be respected for offers of crowdfunding has yet to be resolved. The European Parliament would strongly defend a threshold of €8 million over one year and would not be able to accept the EU Council’s gradual approach. The European Commission, for its part, had proposed to cap it at €1 million.
In its text, the EU Council also proposed to raise the threshold to €8 million. But it also gives Member States the possibility to set a lower threshold, aligned with the threshold set in their national legislation under the Prospectus Regulation. It also allowed Member States to choose to prohibit the raising of capital from their residents to finance offers of more than €5 million.
At the meeting on 6 November, Parliament and the Commission reportedly called on the EU Council to reconsider its position on this point. However, the issue was not really discussed again on Monday 25 November, since the Member States are not ready to change tack for the time being. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)