17 November 2015

ESMA Chair and ED give statements to ECON on leading ESMA for a further 5 years

Mr Maijoor and Ms Ross were invited by the ECON for an exchange of views following the decision of ESMA’s Board of Supervisors to extend their terms of office for a further five years.

Steven Maijoor and Verena Ross, ESMA Chair and Executive Director respectively, have delivered statements to the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee at the European Parliament today on why they wish to continue to lead ESMA, outlining ESMA’s future strategy. 

Maijoor’s statement

 As confirmed in various external evaluations, since its establishment ESMA has performed well against a broad range of tasks with limited resources. All these tasks have contributed to ESMA’s three key objectives of investor protection, orderly markets, and financial stability. They have contributed significantly to the well-functioning of EU financial markets, which is a cornerstone of economic growth. Looking back, the establishment of ESMA by the European Parliament, and also the Council and the European Commission, has been a step change and has achieved, in my view, the intended benefits.

ESMA has played a key role in the reform of the single rule book for EU financial markets in response to the financial crisis. The newly established single rule-book covers a broad range of activities, instruments and entities, including asset management, investment firms, derivatives, trading venues, and Credit Rating Agencies (CRAs). Since 2011, we have delivered more than 120 technical standards and nearly 90 pieces of technical advice.

We have established credible supervision of CRAs improving their governance, transparency and internal control systems. ESMA has successfully completed two enforcement cases and in my role as Chair of the Board I am committed to continue to build a robust track record for enforcement. Derivatives reporting and ESMA’s supervision of Trade Repositories (TRs) has brought light into the EU derivatives market and going forward resolving data quality issues is a priority.

We have progressed substantially on our supervisory convergence agenda covering a wide range of national supervisory practices and using various instruments, including guidelines, opinions, Q&As and peer reviews.

I think it is important that ESMA uses the full range of tools to achieve the convergence objectives. These tools should contribute towards several aims such as the effective implementation of rules, the facilitation of experience exchanges between national regulators, the coordination of supervisory activity, and the assessment of national regulators’ supervision. ESMA’s supervisory convergence work will be an important building block of the Capital Markets Union (CMU) as consistent application is needed to ensure that the single rule-book on paper becomes a single market in practice.

While ESMA’s single rule-book activities will take a smaller share of our resources, we will continue to be a source of expertise at EU level for securities markets legislation and provide advice to the EU institutions. In addition, we will review the technical standards issued in the past years, assess their impact, and adjust them when needed.

Ross’s statement

 I have been most focused on the day-to-day running of ESMA, which has included amongst others the initial set-up and recruitment of the management team, the management of ESMA’s budgetary and staff resources and the planning, monitoring and execution of ESMA’s work programme.

Looking forward, ESMA is going to change further and the road ahead will also not be easy. We have outlined our vision for the next years in ESMA’s Strategic Orientation that we published earlier this year. With the single rule-book task gradually slowing down, the focus is shifting to the implementation challenge. ESMA has made a significant contribution to putting in place the regulatory foundations on which we should now build to ensure that a genuine single EU capital market can deliver the economic growth and employment that Europe needs. Accordingly, the Capital Markets Union (CMU) and the associated action plan as published by the Commission will drive a lot of ESMA’s activity over the next few years.

Maijoor Opening Statement

Verena Ross Statement

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