Make EU Financial Market Supervision stronger and fit for Brexit

"This is necessary to make sure that the UK does not start to do dodgy business in the EU with weakened rules."

The European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs adopted today by a large cross-party majority a reform of the architecture of the European Financial Market Supervision. "We want the European Financial Market Supervision to be stronger and more efficient and to meet the challenges of Brexit, digitisation and money laundering," stated EPP Group MEP Othmar Karas, Parliament co-rapporteur of the draft law.

The reform changes the competencies, the structure, the governance and the financing of the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) and the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

"The purpose of financial markets is to create investments, jobs and growth. The reform aims at making sure this really happens," Karas explained. Decision making procedures will be streamlined, bureaucracy and redundancies will be reduced, certain cross border activities will be directly supervised at EU-level and the authorities will be accountable to the European Parliament.

"European Financial Market Supervision will also receive stronger cut-through rights with respect to third countries. This is necessary to make sure that the Brits, once they are out, do not start to do dodgy business in the EU with weakened rules. We will make sure that whoever does financial business in the EU has to obey our strict rules," Karas underlined.

We want the European Financial Market Supervision to be stronger and more efficient.

Fighting money laundering will also be easier with the new rules. "Recent criminal cases like Danske Bank in Estonia show that European rules have not been enforced everywhere. The total amount of money being laundered in Europe is now higher than the EU Budget. That is why we want to bundle supervision and sanction rights with regard to money laundering at the European Banking Authority in Paris," Karas concluded.

Today's vote is Parliament's position for the upcoming negotiations with EU Member States.