This week in "Brussels"

02 June 2022



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Welcome to our Gold Friends weekly e-mail.

My highlights of the week: Putin’s barbaric activities continue to drive the EU closer together: Denmark voted overwhelmingly to cancel its op-out from EU defence policy and Croatia is set to become the 20th member of the euro area. But Chancellor Scholz’ delays in sending heavy weapons to Ukraine are denting Germany’s moral standing. The ESAs’ joint report on AML/CFT called for licence revocation to be inserted in all sectoral laws as the penalty for serious breaches. The BIS shifted cross-border exposures within the eurozone closer to domestic exposures. There was cross-industry consensus on 11 principles for the consolidated equity tape. Greenwashing has been shown to have personal consequences when the head of DWS resigned. ESMA re-stated its commitment to retail investor protection. The consequences of Brexit continue to appear as Northern Ireland grew faster than the rest of the UK.

Graham Bishop
 

Articles from 26 May - 2 June 2022

 

Policy impacting Finance
Convergence Report reviews Member States' preparedness to join the euro area and paves the way for Croatia's euro adoption on 1 January 2023 : Today, the European Commission has concluded that Croatia is ready to adopt the euro on 1 January 2023, bringing the number of euro area Member States to twenty. View Article

The ECB’s 2022 Convergence Report : Introductory statement by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the meeting of the Euro Accession Countries Working Group of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament  View Article

CER: State of the Union: The EU, three months into Putin's war : Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shifted priorities and frayed alliances in the EU. It has also created winners and losers in Brussels....Of the four challenges facing the EU, energy is the most urgent, while enlargement is probably the trickiest.  View Article
Carnegie: German Ambiguity Is Deciding Ukraine’s Future : Chancellor Scholz’s delay in sending heavy weapons to Ukraine is hurting Kyiv’s chances of preserving its sovereignty. It is also damaging Germany’s standing across Europe. View Article
Project Syndicate's Harold James: What If Ukraine Is a Forever Crisis? : Three months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war is falling into a familiar historical pattern. As both sides dig in deeper and become more invested in the conflict, it will increasingly become a contest that can end only one way. View Article
IMF: Dollar Dominance and the Rise of Nontraditional Reserve Currencies : The US dollar has long played an outsized role in global markets. It continues to do so even as the American economy has been producing a shrinking share of global output over the last two decades. View Article
 
Banking Union
The ESAs publish the joint Report on the withdrawal of authorisation for serious breaches of AML/CFT rules : The joint Report advocates for the introduction in all relevant EU sectoral laws of a specific legal ground to revoke licences for serious breaches of AML/CFT rules. View Article
Reuters: EU court rejects complaints over Banco Popular rescue deal : EU court rejects claims from some shareholders and creditors; Reservations from experts do not mean valuation was not fair; Rescue deal must be seen as "justified and proportionate" View Article
FT: BNP Paribas to benefit from change to eurozone exposure rules : BIS capital reform a step towards harmonising regulations and cross-border mergers View Article
AFME comments on CRR3 draft report : AFME welcomes publication of the draft report by Rapporteur Jonas Fernandez, which represents an important milestone in the legislative negotiations on the banking package which was published by the European Commission last October in order to implement the final 2017 Basel III rules. View Article
EU banking package: German banks warn of adverse consequences for the economy : This would place further strain on the European economy at a time of great uncertainty and high investment needs,” said Christian Ossig, Chief Executive of the Association of German Banks, which this year is the coordinator of the German Banking Industry Committee (GBIC).  View Article

 

Capital Markets Union
 
Keynote speech by Commissioner McGuinness at high-level conference on the Capital Markets Union : ... if we unlock and all of our work comes to fruition, Europe will be in a much better place than it is today around capital markets. View Article
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.  View Article
ESMA's Ross: Key priorities for EU retail fund investors : ESMA has always given prominence to its objective to protect investors and we will certainlycontinue to look out for retail investors. View Article

ESMA reports on supervision of costs and fees in investment funds : “In order to promote retail participation in the fund market, continued supervisory attention is needed on the topic of costs and fees in investment funds.” View Article
Better Finance: Last chance for Member States to support EU citizens as investors and finally ban Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) : Member States have until 31 May to actively support transparent, efficient, and accessible equity markets for retail investors and submit their written comments to the French Presidency working on the Compromise Proposal for the review of MIFIR regulation.  View Article 
ICMA submits feedback for the European Commission’s proposed amendments to CSDR : The document outlines some considerations for the penalty framework and application from both a secondary and primary market perspective. View Article
EFAMA: Cross-Industry Consensus on EU Equity Consolidated Tape : AFME, BVI, Cboe Europe and EFAMA have today jointly published a position paper which provides a set of key principles needed to ensure the successful creation of an EU Equity Consolidated Tape (CT). These 11 principles would help ensure a CT is commercially viable and appropriately constructed to deliver the most benefit to European issuers, investors, exchanges and other intermediaries.  View Article

 

Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG)

 FSB's Knott: Propelling a graceful transition: the role of the financial system : Climate risk must be incorporated into all financial decisions. This is a goal which will require significant changes to business practices and to policy. View Article

Finextra: Deutsche Bank exec quits over 'greenwashing' probe : Asoka Woehrmann, the chief executive of Deutsche Bank subsidiary DWS, has resigned after German law officials stormed its offices over claims that the company exaggerated the sustainable credentials of some of its financial products.  View Article
Basel Committee finalises principles on climate-related financial risks, progresses work on specifying cryptoassets' prudential treatment an : Basel Committee finalises principles for effective management and supervision of climate-related financial risks; Progresses work on specifying cryptoasset prudential treatment and issuing a second consultation paper;.. View Article
Green Bonds: An assessmentof the proposed EU Green Bond Standards and its potential to preventgreenwashing : This study analyses the fundamental aspects of the EuGBR proposal in the context of the EU green bondmarket and existing EU legislation in the area of sustainable finance and financial regulation. View Article
ESMA: Supervisory briefing Sustainability risks and disclosures in the area of investment management : One of ESMA’s statutory objectives is to enhance supervisory convergence across the internal market, by playing an active role in building a common supervisory culture and promoting common supervisory approaches and practices. View Article
AccountancyEurope: Mandatory rotation of auditors : Streamlining European countries’ Audit rules ...his publication highlights how differently 30 European countries have implemented the 2014 European Union (EU) audit rules on mandatory rotation of auditors... View Article
ALFI responds to the EU Commission on the CSDR Refit proposal : Regarding cash penalties and for Tier 2 asset managers, we observed that the cost of the monitoring outweighs the penalties received. We urge the Commission and ESMA to streamline the corresponding treatment. View Article
PensionsEurope comments on the EC proposal for Corporate Sustainability Due Dilligence Directive : ...we supported the objectives of the OECD Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct and the creation of equal guidelines and frameworks across the EU through legislation to ensure that companies are commited to protecting human rights and the environment.  View Article

 

Protecting Customers
BETTER FINANCE response to the European Commission consultation call for Evidence for an Evaluation and Impact Assessment Run in Parallel : BETTER FINANCE welcomes the European Commission’s call for evidence on retail investor protection but questions the efficiency of the exercise as it seems to duplicate efforts and it is not focused on all key areas of concern for individual, non-professional (“retail”) investors. View Article

Fin Tech Regulation

AFME: Ensuring crypto-assets regulation is fit for the digital age : Crypto-assets, such as Bitcoin, harness DLT and are seen by many to have plausible value for future generations. View Article
OECD: Blockchain at the frontier : Impacts and issues in cross-border co-operation and global governance View Article
InsuranceEurope: Insurers call on EC to clarify cyber security rules : Insurance Europe insisted that the insurance industry’s use of digital products should be left outside of the scope of such an Act, since the sector will be governed by the forthcoming Digital Operational Resilience Act. View Article
 
Economic Policies Impacting EU Finance
Parliament: National recovery plans should boost resilience, autonomy and social protection : Regular auditing and monitoring of the expenditure in order to protect EU’s financial interests;Investment and reforms should focus on increasing EU strategic autonomy in key supply chains and critical infrastructure... View Article
EFAMA reply to EC Consultation on VAT in the digital age : Building on our reply to the consultation on the review of VAT rules for FS, EFAMA took the opportunity to re-engage with TAXUD to share a short statement on EC's Consultation on VAT in the digital age.  View Article
 
Brexit and the City

 FCA planning reform of the listing regime to boost growth and competitiveness : The FCA has set out an ambitious vision for potential reform to the way companies list in the UK that aims to attract more high quality, growth companies and give investors greater opportunities. View Article

Brexit
EU-UKForum's Rycroft: What next for the Brexit insurgency? : The Northern Ireland Protocol is back in the news. Amid renewed threats from the UK government to unilaterally revoke some of its provisions, the Protocol is our regular reminder that Brexit is far from done. View Article
POLITICO: Northern Ireland economy outpacing post-Brexit Britain : Analysis finds unusual gains for Northern Ireland, the only UK region still able to trade goods barrier-free with the EU. View Article
UK TPO: Northern Ireland trade patterns and the row over the Protocol : Where do Northern Ireland’s imports come from? Is Northern Irish trade skewed towards ‘checks intensive’ products? What is the current trend in Northern Ireland’s imports? View Article

 


 

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