12 February 2010

Spanish Presidency publishes Omnibus Directive Compromise text

The Omnibus Directive amends existing key directives in order to give powers to the ESAs. The areas in which amendments are proposed include the appropriate scope of technical standards and the possibility of authorities settling disagreements.

The Spanish Presidency published an EU Council compromise text for the proposed 'Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending directives in respect to the powers of the European Banking Authority, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority and the European Securities and Markets Authority (Omnibus Directive).'

• definition of the appropriate scope of technical standards as an additional tool for supervisory convergence and with a view of developing a single rule book;
• the possibility for the authority to settle disagreements in a balanced way to those areas where common decision making processes already exist in sectoral legislation; and
• general amendments which are common to most sectoral legislation and necessary for the directives to operate in the context of new authorities for example, renaming the level 3 committees to the new authorities and ensuring the appropriate gateways for the exchange of information are present. It is also proposed that the ESAs will be given the duty to establish, publish and regularly update registers and lists of financial actors in the Community and other important issues, which is currently the duty of each national competent authority.