01 June 2022

ESMA's Ross: Towards delivering the CMU

As ESMA, we have always been very supportive of the ambition to create a genuinesingle European capital market. The Capital Markets Union is not a new project, andwe made some progress since 2015.

However, much has happened since then as well. The UK is no longer a member of the European Union, we went through a global health crisis with COVID, sustainability and digitalisation of the economy are
transforming our world, including the financial sector, and the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is also having a profound impact on our societies and economies.

Hence, integrated EU capital markets, including a strong regulatory framework and its
consistent application, have become more important than ever.
ESMA is closely involved in delivering the Capital Markets Union, both when it comes
to further developing the single rulebook via providing technical advice or drafting technical standards, and by ensuring day to day the convergent application of these
rules across the EU.

Today, I will share with you ESMA’s views on a few topics starting with the MiFIR
review, and in particular the consolidated tape, before providing you with some insights
on our supervisory convergence work in the area of MiFID II and the trading venue
perimeter. I will also touch upon some recent market events and the lessons we might
draw from them.

MiFIR Review – towards the establishment of a consolidated tape

The European Commission published the long-awaited proposal for a review of MiFIR
in November last year, but this has not been the start of the process for us. ESMA has
been contributing to this review for several years, starting with the review report on the
cost of market data and the consolidated tape that we published in December 2019
and concluding with the review report on algorithmic trading in September 2021.
Many of our proposals, such as on the consolidated tape, the equity and non-equity
transparency regime and investor protection have made their way into the
Commission’s proposal. Not surprisingly, we are overall very supportive of the proposal
and fully share its ambitions. At the same time, it is fair to say that we also have some
suggestions on how to further improve it in places.

The Commission proposal is now in the hands of co-legislators, and we hope that it
will be possible to conclude on this file quickly. I know that many of you are closely
following the negotiations and are ready to share your expertise to help further
finetuning the text.

The review is extensive and touches on so many different areas that it would be
impossible to cover all of them today. I will therefore focus my remarks today on the
creation of a consolidated tape since I know that this is a topic that many of you are particularly concerned about....

more at  ESMA

© ESMA