The Council of the European Union—gathered in its ‘Economic and Financial Affairs’ configuration in Luxembourg on Tuesday, 8 October—formally adopted the Listing Act, which consists of a set of legislative measures aiming to make EU capital markets more attractive to businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). An agreement with the European Parliament had been reached last February (see EUROPE 13341/8 and 13398/38).
According to Hungarian Minister of Finance Mihály Varga, the new rules will simplify the regulatory landscape by offering companies “more opportunities for businesses to grow and access capital, while ensuring investor protection and market integrity”.
“This is a concrete contribution to the success of the Capital Markets Union, and I am confident it will have lasting positive effects on European economies”, he added.
The legislative package includes a directive on multiple-vote share structures, which was also adopted on Tuesday.
These structures enable company founders to retain control of their businesses, even if part of the capital is held by other investors. There were differences of opinion on the contours of this directive during interinstitutional negotiations (‘trilogue’) (see EUROPE 13339/19).
The various measures in the act will soon be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and will come into force 20 days after publication.
Other financial dossiers. During the same meeting (see EUROPE 13497/23), the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU indicated that it was ready to open interinstitutional negotiations (‘trilogue’) with the European Parliament on four other legislative dossiers that concern financial services.
These dossiers concern new rules to strengthen bank crisis management (see EUROPE 13435/2), the retail investment strategy (see EUROPE 13430/14), the simplification of reporting requirements (see EUROPE 13435/4), and the revision of the ‘Benchmark Regulation’ (see EUROPE 13398/36).
The Hungarian Presidency affirmed that it “would like to advance on all four files as much as possible during our term and even reach political agreement on some of them if possible”. (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)