ECON Committee: Exchange of views with ESMA, EBA and EIOPA

05 October 2011

Steven J Maijoor, Chairman of the ESMA, said that so far there are 11 small CRAs registered. He also said that the registration process for the large CRAs has not been as smooth as it was supposed to be. However, one large CRA is going to register with ESMA very soon.

Andrea Enria, Chairman of the European Banking Authority, stressed that the EBA started to work in a turbulent environment and that the stress test was a very difficult task. Furthermore, the sovereign debt crisis is putting a lot of pressure in the European financial market and banks are suffering. EBA has to draft by the end of 2012 around 600 technical standards which is an enormous work load for such a small organisation.

Steven J Maijoor presented the following as ESMA’s key priorities:

• Registration of CRAs
• Investor Protection – UCITS and complex product, ESMA  will be draft guidelines for the end of this year
• Algorithmic trading - final guidelines will be published by the end of this year
• Regulatory competition - National Authorities are looking at the pre-trade transparency waiver.

He stressed that as ESMA will have to do additional tasks, the budget should increase in a proportionate way. In his opinion, ESMA should only be funded by the EU budget and not by national authorities.

Finally, Gabriel Rodrigo Ribeiro Tavares Bernardino, Chairman of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority, said that the key priority for EIOPA at the moment is Solvency II. He also mentioned that EIOPA will do EU-wide stress tests on the insurance industry.

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