European Commission: Public consultation on building a proportionate regulatory environment to support SME listing

18 December 2017

Facilitating access to finance for SMEs through all their development stages is a key element of the Commission's Capital Markets Union initiative. The CMU Mid-term Review raised the project's level of ambition and strengthened its focus on capital-raising by SMEs on public markets.

The Commission notably committed to assessing whether targeted amendments to EU rules could deliver a more conducive regulatory environment to support SME initial public offerings.

The consultation will help the Commission identify ways to cut red tape and build a supportive environment for SMEs wanting to list their shares or bonds on SME Growth Markets, without jeopardising investor protection and market integrity.

The public consultation will focus on three broad categories of issues:

The issues consulted on in relation to the operation of the regulatory barriers to SME listing are mostly well known to stakeholders. They have been the subject of sustained dialogue with both industry stakeholders and Member States. Issues relating to SME listing have also come up in responses to the Green Paper on Building a Capital Markets Union, to the call for evidence on the EU regulatory framework for financial services, and the CMU Mid-term review public consultation. This public consultation is therefore rather focussed and for that reason a ten weeks timeframe is foreseen.

Only responses received through the online questionnaire by 26th February 2018 will be taken into account and included in the report summarising the responses.

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