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12 May 2022

This week in "Brussels"



Welcome to our Gold Friends weekly e-mail.

 

Highlights of my week: On 9 May – Europe Day – we commemorated the immortal words of Robert Schuman when, in 1950, he launched the concepts that have become today’s European Union. It was also the natural day for the leaders of the EU institutions to receive the results of the Conference on the Future of Europe – setting a bold future to respond to the barbaric attack of Russia on the Ukraine – following on from Schuman’s response to the horrors evident in 1945. In the more prosaic world of cybersecurity for Europe, DORA was agreed (Digital Operational Resilience Act!) DEBRA was also agreed (Debt-equity bias reduction allowance!!)

The Northern Ireland vote was as historic as expected and Brexit now looks set to detach part of the United Kingdom in the foreseeable future. The Queen’s Speech laid bare the paucity of the Brexiteer’s ideas about what to do next – if they ever had any ideas in the first place.

Graham Bishop


 

Articles from 16-12 May 2022


 General Financial Policy

 Fondation Schuman: The Declaration of 9 May 1950 :This is the full text of the proposal, which was presented by the French foreign minister Robert Schuman and which led to the creation of what is now the European Union.  View Article

On Europe Day, the Presidents of the European Parliament, Commission and Council received the final report with proposals to reform the EU. : In a closing ceremony today in Strasbourg, President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola, on behalf of the Council Presidency, President Emmanuel Macron, and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen received from the Co-Chairs of the Conference Executive Board the final report on the outcome of the Conference. View Article

EPC's Duff: How to trigger treaty change : The Conference on the Future of Europe debated the abolition of the veto to make EU decision-making more effective, but left no clear instruction as to how to realise its aspiration in terms of treaty change. View Article
FSB's Knott at ISDA: Diverse challenges, common threads: Preserving global financial stability today and tomorrow : The work of the FSB has benefitted from long-standing and constructive interactions withISDA on a range of important areas View Article

Banking Union

 EBA sees progress in the implementation of the supervisory review and evaluation process and of the supervisory priorities for 2021 but flag : The EBA concluded that the Pillar 2 Requirements (P2R) are now legally binding across the European Union (EU) and consistently considered when calculating the trigger point for the maximum distributable amount (MDA) restrictions. View Article

 Capital Markets Union

 ISDA Margin Survey Year-End 2021 : ISDA has published its latest margin survey, which shows a steep increase in the amount of initial margin (IM) collected by the largest market participants for their non-cleared derivatives trades. View Article

 Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)

 AFME: ESG Finance Report Q1 2022 - European Sustainable Finance :  AFME is pleased to circulate its European ESG Finance quarterly data report for the first quarter of 2022. The aim of this report is to provide detailed data and analysis on the rapidly growing Sustainable Finance market in Europe. View Article

UK Finance: ESG, financial crime and climate change: a vicious and reinforcing cycle : Financial crime is not a closed ecosystem that affects corporate structures or individual victims in isolation. It has extended and expansive consequences for environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues world-wide.  View Article
EBF: Pillar 1 capital charge for climate risk: Wrong tool for the right purpose : Two years ago, governments, supervisors and regulators pleaded banks to use their capital, reducing the ratios, in order to keep on financing the economy after the outbreak of the pandemic.  View Article
Accountancy Europe: Sustainability assurance under the CSRD : Professional accountants have been providing assurance services on sustainability information to companies in the European Union (EU) for over two decades. View Article
IFAC Continues to Advocate for Convergence in Global Sustainability Disclosure : Welcomes EFRAG’s public consultation on European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) exposure drafts View Article
GRI: Human rights is at the heart of corporate transparency : Growing investor-led pressure for consistent disclosure on human rights impacts. Stakeholder demands are reaffirming that disclosure on human rights related impacts are central to how companies demonstrate accountability. View Article
IPE: ESG roundup: BlackRock to support fewer shareholder proposals this year : ... because many climate-related proposals coming to the vote appear to be more prescriptive and constraining on company management. View Article
European Commission: Mandate to the ESAs to develop SFDR RTS on product exposures to gas and nuclear activities : ...propose amendments to the regulatory technical standards in relation to the information that should beprovided in pre-contractual documents, on websites, and in periodic reports about the exposure of financial products to investments in fossil gas and nuclear energy activities.  View Article

Protecting Customers

ESAs call for improvements in product descriptions intended for retail investors : The ESAs have identified a range of poor practices in how PRIIP manufacturers describe products under this section. Most issues relate to a general lack of clarity in the text, which makes it difficult for retail investors to understand the key features of products. View Article
BDB: Open Finance Framework: focus on financial data creates imbalance : The aim is to allow customers themselves to decide who they give access to their data through the Open Finance Framework. It means financial products and services can be better tailored to individual preferences. View Article

Fin Tech Regulation

Council: Digital finance: Provisional agreement reached on DORA : Given the ever-increasing risks of cyber attacks, the EU is strengthening the IT security of financial entities such as banks, insurance companies and investment firms. View Article
ECON: Provisional deal on protecing the EU’s financial system from cyber attacks and ICT disruptions : EP negotiators agreed with the Council on new uniform rules for ICT risk management, reporting major ICT-related incidents, resilience testing and sound monitoring of ICT third-party risk. View Article
Bruegel: Insights for successful enforcement of Europe’s Digital Markets Act : The European Commission will enforce digital competition rules against big tech; internally, it should ensure a dedicated process and teams; externally, it should ensure cooperation with other jurisdictions and coherence with other digital policies. View Article
EIOPA reacts to stakeholders’ views on blockchain in insurance : The document provides a high-level summary of the responses received from stakeholders during a public consultation on the topic as well as EIOPA’s reactions to them. View Article
Gaining momentum – Results of the 2021 BIS survey on central bank digital currencies : Most central banks are exploring central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and more than a quarter of them are now developing or running concrete pilots. View Article
 

Economic Policies Impacting EU Finance

Corporate taxation: Commission proposes tax incentive for equity to help companies grow, become stronger and more resilient : The European Commission has today proposed a debt-equity bias reduction allowance, or DEBRA, to help businesses access the financing they need and to become more resilient. This measure will support businesses by introducing an allowance that will grant to equity the same tax treatment as debt. View Article
ALFI responds to the EC public consultation on VAT in the digital age : The digitalisation of the economy implies also challenges for the financial industry as a whole including for the fund industry. View Article

Brexit and the City

FT: Queen's Speech 2022: Govt to revoke EU financial regulations : The government has announced plans to revoke EU financial services regulations and replace it with new rules which are "designed for the UK". View Article
POLITICO: EU struggles to find way forward on financial services after Brexit : The financial-services agenda is languishing, with no single country stepping in to fill the UK’s shoes. View Article

Brexit

FT: EU threatens retaliation if UK ditches N Ireland protocol : Appeals from US for solution but Liz Truss says trading arrangements ‘fail to properly address real issues’ The EU has vowed to retaliate if the UK rips up a post-Brexit trade deal for Northern Ireland after London’s threat of unilateral action triggered alarm in Brussels and Washington. View Article
Federal Trust: VIDEO: Brexit – Macron’s Vision and the Northern Ireland Protocol : n this new Federal Trust video Brendan Donnelly and John Stevens discuss the speech of President Macron to the European Parliament and its possible implications for relations between the UK and the European Union.  View Article
UK in a Changing Europe: What just happened in Northern Ireland? : Sinn Féin topped the poll. Alliance received a great boost. The DUP lost support. But despite all the advance notice, the results of this Assembly election still come as something of a shock to the system. View Article
First meeting of the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly : MEPs and UK parliamentarians will gather in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to discuss the state of EU-UK relations and the war in Ukraine. View Article
EU-UK Forum: For Brexit Britain, tracking EU rules is a job for life : Jacob Rees-Mogg presents a highly idealised vision of a sovereign UK, where the identification of Brexit opportunities is outsourced to the people, and the government neatly enacts their wishes. View Article
Institute for Government: Five things we learned from the Queen’s Speech : What this does not amount to – so far – is a bonfire of EU red tape nor anything that in the short run will make much difference to the cost pressures on business or households.  View Article

 

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