The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) on Monday 14 June began examining the many amendments tabled to the draft reports (see EUROPE 12698/13) on the digital finance package presented in September 2020.
The first divisions are emerging, notably on the report on the proposed regulation on Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCA), where more than 1,150 amendments have been tabled.
According to the rapporteur, Stefan Berger (EPP, Germany), the Commission’s basic draft was a “good” text, but a number of areas could be improved, starting with a stronger role for the European Central Bank (ECB).
In his draft report (see EUROPE 12693/8), Mr Berger argues that the decision on the authorisation of electronic money tokens should be left to the ECB.
For the Greens/EFA group, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) should be given direct supervisory powers for all crypto-assets service providers. For certain crypto-assets with a predominantly payment purpose, it is the powers of the European Banking Authority (EBA) that should in this case be strengthened.
The ECR group believes that the most important body in terms of supervision should be the national central banks. While it does not close the door to a greater involvement of the EBA in cross-border transactions, it is opposed to a strengthening of the ECB’s powers.
There is also the question of definitions and scope. The Renew Europe Group has tabled several amendments on these issues. In particular, it proposes to remove certain assets from the scope of application, such as hybrid tokens, which it believes should instead fall under the MiFID regime.
Another crucial issue for several political groups is to ensure that crypto-asset markets are not used to engage in criminal activity. For the S&D and Greens/EFA groups, authorised crypto-asset service providers should comply with the strictest anti-money laundering rules and not have links to non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.
The S&D, Greens/EFA and The Left groups also want to improve the ecological footprint of crypto-assets. “A Bitcoin consumes as much energy as the Netherlands and produces enormous amount of electronic waste”, said Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany). His group proposes, among other things, that after a transition period, crypto-asset service providers should be required to stop committing to crypto-assets that rely on unsustainable ‘mining’.
DLT pilot scheme. The negotiations on the proposed regulation on the pilot scheme for market infrastructures based on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) seem to be somewhat more consensual.
According to the rapporteur, Johan Van Overtveldt (ECR, Belgium), the negotiating team agrees that the regime should be “limited in scope and time limited; respect the key principle of same activity, same risks, same rules ; be technologically neutral and only introduce targeting adjustments to EU law”.
One of the issues still to be decided is the maximum threshold for the pilot scheme. The amendments tabled propose very different thresholds. The rapporteur has said he is prepared to propose higher thresholds as a compromise than he had envisaged in his original report (see EUROPE 12677/12), but is reluctant to go beyond those proposed by the European Commission.
For Renew Europe, one of the priorities must be to facilitate the financing of SMEs. The centre-right group has thus proposed in these amendments to exempt SME financing from the bond ceiling in the pilot scheme. He also wants a fast-track procedure for new entrants.
DORA. Regarding the draft report (see EUROPE 12686/29) by Billy Kelleher (Renew Europe, Ireland) on the Digital Operational Resilience Act (or DORA), again, work is expected to be intense.
More than 900 amendments have been tabled, including on the scope and structure of the new supervisory framework for systemic technology providers the scope and structure of the new supervisory framework for technology service providers considered to be systemic.
Due to the large number of amendments tabled on these reports, the vote in the ECON Commission could only take place in September.
For its part, the EU Council hopes to reach agreement on these texts by the end of June. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)