The Commission released its ninth Progress Report on the Financial Services Action Plan, concluding that the FSAP has been one of the driving forces behind the developing European capital market. Given the European Parliament elections and EU Enlargement next year, it is crucially important that the remaining major FSAP measures are agreed in the next four months.
The report also outlines the initiatives taken by the Commission to assess the current state of integration of European financial markets, states that 36 of the 42 original measures have been finalised, and sets out recent successes in moving the FSAP towards completion.
A crucial adjunct to the FSAP has been the enhancement of arrangements for the effective supervision of financial institutions and the management of financial crises with a cross-border dimension. A key development in this regard is the emergence of structured arrangements to allow regulators and supervisors to organise their co-operation and mutual agreements.
On 5 November 2003, the Commission adopted a package of seven measures aiming to establish this new organisational architecture in all financial services sectors. The result will be that for each of the main financial sectors, there will be two committees:
one composed of national regulators to assist the Commission in adopting technical implementing measures;
a second one to bring together national supervisors to provide the Commission with technical advice on implementing measures, but also to ensure consistent implementation of EU law in Member States.
This package is needed urgently if the FSAP is to be implemented and enforced effectively.
The Commission does not intend to come forward with a complete new programme of measures in the area of financial services in the short term, but is working on two broad policy goals, where over the coming years more work is needed:
common implementation and enforcement, inter alia by developing networks of financial regulators and supervisors
the global dimension of the European financial market with, at its centre, relations with the United States.
The overall objective of this stock-taking is to arrive at a broad understanding of the extent of any remaining gaps in the regulatory, supervisory, administrative, and public policy framework.
The sectoral groups will focus primarily on the prioritisation of remaining impediments to cross-border business and their impact on the realisation of conditions for the smooth functioning of European financial markets.
To facilitate the involvement of, and input from, all interested parties, the Commission plans that the material emerging from the sectoral groups will also be subjected to public comment during the Summer of 2004.
Finally, the working papers and material from the sectoral groups could serve as a basis for a high level Forum in the Summer of 2004. This Forum would bring together the key decision-makers, experts and industry leaders. This event would have two purposes:
First, it would represent an occasion for political stock-taking of the progress on the FSAP.
Second, it would allow for high level exchanges between key policy makers and industry leaders on remaining challenges.
Press release
Progress report
Annex
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