ESA’s budget 2015 – ensuring safe financial markets
07 November 2014
Letter to ECOFIN: ESAs are concerned about negotiations for the EU budget 2015 and budgetary constraints of ESAs.
ESAs notes that the Council of the European Union in its position agreed on 02 September 2014 on the EU draft Budget for 2015 has supported the European Commission and adjusted considerably our initial budget requests downwards. The budget requests of each ESA were adopted and backed by ESAs respective Members (the national supervisory authorities) and are based on realistic forecasts and on extensive reallocation of tasks and reprioritisation of resources.
The ESAs were set up in 2011 with the full support from the Council, in response to the financial crisis which exposed significant failures in financial supervision. Since then they have steadily been entrusted, within the remits of their mandates, with more tasks in order to contribute to:
-
Improving the functioning of the internal market in the field of financial services, including in particular a sound, effective and consistent level of regulation and supervision
-
Protecting depositors, investors, policyholders, consumers and other beneficiaries
-
Ensuring the integrity, efficiency and orderly functioning of financial markets
-
Safeguarding the stability of the financial system
-
Strengthening international supervisory coordination
Such tasks include:
-
For the European Banking Authority (EBA), inter alia contributing to the single rulebook by the preparation of technical standards, guidelines, reports and advice on banking legislation (CRDIV/CRR) and recovery and resolution framework (BRRD), and their respective delegated acts, and enhancing supervisory convergence in the context of the new supervisory setting
-
For the European Pensions and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) these tasks include inter alia the finalisation of the standards and guidelines necessary for the implementation of Solvency II, contributing to strengthening the EU regulatory framework on occupational pensions (IORP II) and developing a framework for the creation of an internal market for personal pensions, implementation of IMD2 and PRIIPS Directives
-
For the European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA), inter alia the direct supervision of Credit Rating Agencies and Trade Repositories, new tasks attributed to ESMA under EMIR, on-going consumer protection work stemming particularly from MiFID II/MiFIR and the implementation and maintenance of IT systems and databases to improve our understanding and identification of risks
The budget cut and the freezing of the staff numbers, as proposed by the European Commission and supported by the Council in its above decision, would severely undermine ESAs capacity to continue to deliver on the objectives set out in the ESAs’ regulations and the tasks we were given by the legislators.
Also these cuts do not reflect the fact that in 2015, the ESAs will still be in a ”growing” phase (“new tasks” agencies) which – as acknowledged by the Commission in its overall approach to European Agencies – should be reflected by additional resources. The reform in response to the crisis is now moving from legislation to implementation and the ESAs play an essential role in this phase which requires adequate resources.
Furthermore, ESAs welcome the Council conclusions on the ESFS Review “that the ESAs' resources, in particular experienced staff, should be adequate to their tasks and responsibilities”, and fully support your intention to address this issue and come with an appropriate solution to it.
© EBA
