MEPs on the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) expressed their support on Thursday 2 July for the ‘MISP’ legislative package proposed to strengthen the integration of financial markets within the Savings and Investments Union (‘SIU’). As in the discussions held in the Council of the EU (see EUROPE 13897/21), the main dividing line concerns the scope of the supervisory powers that would be entrusted to the European Securities and Markets Authority (‘ESMA’). Although the objective of greater market integration commands broad support, Parliament’s political groups differ over the division of responsibilities between the ESMA and national authorities.
The rapporteur on the package’s framework regulation, Markus Ferber (EPP, German), defended an approach based on competitiveness and simplification. “Are we promoting market integration? Are we simplifying procedures?”, he summed up. In addition, the Christian Democrat MEP proposes entrusting the ESMA with supervision of all central counterparties (‘CCPs’) and all central securities depositories (‘CSDs’), which he sees as genuinely pan-European players.
By contrast, Mr Ferber was markedly more cautious about transferring supervision of large asset managers to the ESMA. “These investment funds are basically active nationally. They may be large, but I think local nationals would have been better. If you add a new layer, you only create more red tape, new costs, without improving integration”, he said. The rapporteur argued for a ‘competitiveness’ mandate for the ESMA and for the abolition of double supervisory fees.
For his part, the rapporteur on the framework directive, Eero Heinäluoma (S&D, Finnish), argued for greater centralisation, taking the view that large asset managers should fall directly under the ESMA as well. According to the European social democrat, such a development is “not an ideological obsession”. “This is common sense if we are serious about supporting the European economy”, he argued. The Finnish rapporteur also called for a strengthening of the macroprudential framework and of supervision of crypto-asset service providers.
On the right of the Chamber, Giovanni Crosetto (ECR, Italian), the package’s third rapporteur on the proposal turning the directive on securities transactions into a European regulation, stressed the need to maintain a central role for the national supervisory authorities. “The national competent authorities need to remain central in the framework and work together with the ESMA”, he argued, considering that this development should be seen “as a multi-year institutional journey, rather than a short-term organisational change programme”.
The shadow rapporteurs confirmed the political divide over the ideal supervision of EU markets. Enikő Győri (PfE, Hungarian) rejected the idea of centralising supervision, João Cotrim de Figueiredo (Renew Europe, Portuguese) supported a strengthening of the ESMA coupled with institutional safeguards, while Kira Marie Peter-Hansen (Greens/EFA, Danish) came out in favour of extending the European authority’s powers.
On behalf of the European Commission, the Director-General for financial services (DG FISMA), John Berrigan, welcomed the “high level of ambition” in the draft reports while calling on the co-legislators to preserve the package’s consistency. Mr Berrigan recalled that the ‘One Europe, One Market’ roadmap aimed to secure an agreement between Parliament and the Council of the EU by the end of the year.
Dublin wants an agreement by October. In the Council of the EU, European Finance Ministers will return to the ‘MISP’ package next Friday, 10 July, for the first time under the Irish Presidency.
In an interview on Thursday 2 July with a small group of journalists, including Agence Europe, the Irish Minister, Simon Harris, said he wanted to get clarity on “all the issues” quickly, rejecting sterile discussions over the summer and hoping “to have a general approach between July and October Ecofin [Economic and Financial Affairs EU Council meetings, Editor’s note]”.
“We have to stop presuming the issue is supervision. We want market integration”, he argued. (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit with Camille-Cerise Gessant)